


All In All

by dragonofdispair, Rizobact



Series: Transformers Fantasy AU Novels/Novellas [6]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Mythology/Religion, Angst, Because They Aren’t Human, Child Death, Child Injury, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Fantasy AU, Fluff, Gods, Gotta Fill Out That World Somehow, Human Sacrifice, Lots of OCs - Freeform, M/M, Magic, Minor Character Death, No Really They Will, Noble AU, Now Prowl Climbs All The Things, OCs - Freeform, Politics, Polyhexians Will Eat Anything, Public Sex, Spark Sexual Interfacing, Tactile Sexual Interfacing, Violence, Vision Quest, Well Sentient Sacrifice Anyway, Wheeljack Makes Good Drugs, Worldbuilding, barbarian au, culture clash, femme!Jazz, femme!Ricochet, femme!prowl, gender bending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 11:07:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 151,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17897288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/pseuds/dragonofdispair, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rizobact/pseuds/Rizobact
Summary: Sequel toAll Of The Stars:Harvested and trained all her life to put her duty to her kingdom above her desires, Princess Prowl of Praxus never expected to marry for love. Yet she has, and is now headed to her beloved’s homeland to learn how to live as a barbarian with a new duty to carry out: as the first ever Praxan diplomat to Polyhex, the king has tasked her with negotiating a peace and stopping all Polyhexian pirate raids on Praxan property.Prowl has doubts that she’s up to the task, but at least it’s a break from the complex, high-stakes politics of Praxus.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> One of the **trigger warnings** for this story is for semi-graphic depictions of the **injury and death** of what could be considered **children and infants.** We’ll warn again when the chapter(s) it happens in are posted, but it is essential to the plot and is traumatizing for the POV character to witness, meaning it’s talked about multiple times in different contexts and thus isn’t really skip-able on the whole.
> 
> There’s also a couple different varieties of “human” sacrifice, in different contexts.
> 
> You have been warned.
> 
> Beta’d by [wicked3659](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wicked3659/pseuds/wicked3659) and [humanalias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/humanalias/pseuds/humanalias)

_I try to do the best I can ~♪_  
_To see the truth from where I stand ~♪_  
          ~~Shania Twain, [All In All](https://youtu.be/eTzUnGRcfIk)

.

.

.

It was the middle of the night and Prowl was trying to sleep. She hadn’t quite gotten the knack of it. The kattumaram never stopped moving, and it moved more and more violently further out at sea than it had during their jaunts around the shores near Hightower. To an extent, she’d been prepared for that. She’d researched the accounts of dozens of sailors, trying to get a sense of the storms and rough seas they’d encounter. So far they hadn’t run headlong into any storms, but she’d heard plenty of thunder, some of it close, and seen lightning. It was more unsettling than she’d anticipated, and not at all conducive to sleeping on top of the rolling of the waves.

Jazz had insisted she be tied to the small boat’s mast by a long rope, even when she was lying in the sleeping hull. Prowl felt that was a bit much, but there was some comfort in it.

The  _ stars _ though! The rain, or at least the rain clouds, had been nearly omnipresent for much of the journey, but every once in a while—

“Prowl,” Jazz whispered, shaking her out of her half-sleep. She sounded amused. “Yer gonna miss th’stars again.”

—every once in a while, there’d be a break in the clouds.

Smiling her thanks at her mate, Prowl sat up on the sleeping pad and looked up, craning her neck until she spotted the speckled patch of darkness. The edges of the gap were only visible by the absence of stars where the clouds covered them, but in the space where they didn’t… “’S beautiful.”

Jazz checked the sail, pulling everything taut. She’d gotten very little recharge during the sail, but was still in high spirits. “They’ll only be out fer a little bit,” she said, “but I thought ya’d wanna see Seadreamer’n Silvercloud while y’can.” 

“Do!” Prowl hadn’t quite oriented the small section of sky with her mental map of the stars, but the specific names made the task much easier. Prowl fixed her gaze on the glimmer of pink, brighter now than she’d ever seen it. Because of where they were? The time of the vorn— er, season? She was about to ask Jazz if she knew, but then noticed something else she’d never seen before and gasped. “I can see both of ’em!”

“Yup!” Prowl heard the smile in Jazz’s voice, though it was too dark to see the flash of fangs. “Th’harvest season’s about t’start.”

“So it is th’timin’,” Prowl reasoned. Usually the two stars were so close as to be indistinguishable, especially to the naked optic — Prowl hadn’t even known the pink dot in the sky was two stars instead of one before meeting Jazz — and it was truly a special moment to get to see them both like this. “Nice’a th’clouds t’gimme a peek.”

“’S easier t’git a break out on th’water.” Jazz flopped down on the deck to look up. At first Prowl had been concerned when she’d do this, that they’d blow off course or get hit by a wave and pushed over, but Jazz’s ability to read the weather had proven superb. “Th’rain gods dwell on th’land an’ keep th’clouds close as they can.”

Natural phenomena explained as the actions or presence of the gods. It wasn’t the kind of answer Prowl usually sought, but it was very in keeping with her bondmate’s culture. Polyhex had a whole pantheon of gods, demigods, heroes, monsters, and spirits (often without clear distinctions between them) that they didn’t so much worship in the sense Prowl knew, but lived with. There was still reverence there; Jazz took the gods very seriously, and Prowl found it hard not to follow her example out here among the natural wonders, but there were no temples. No strict services and sermons. Even with her admittedly limited religious experience, Prowl could tell theirs was a more personal, if less scientific, approach. Jazz believed herself to have a relationship, some good and some bad, with each of the gods.

“Better enjoy ’em now then,” Prowl said, still looking up at the twin points of light. “They’re special.”

“Seadreamer was th’first warrior,” Jazz murmured quietly. “Toldja th’story… Wouldn’t be warriors, not real ones, without ’er.”

“And who knows? I might not’ve been here with ya if it weren’t fer Silvercloud.” The ritual kidnapping that had turned Prowl’s whole life upside down was a Polyhexian custom now, but in the story, it had been Silvercloud’s people on the mainland who’d observed the tradition in ages past. Whatever the combination of truth and myth it was, the symmetry of their stories gave Prowl a sense of kinship with those stars, above and beyond the call of the rest to her magic.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. Prowl still couldn’t see the clouds directly, but because she was watching, she could see the stars swiftly — much more swiftly than she’d ever imagined clouds could move — disappear as the gap closed up.

“Might be lightnin’ again,” Jazz observed.

“Bleh,” Sundance, Prowl’s “sleeping” familiar, meowed. She didn’t like either thunder  _ or _ lightning.

“You don’t have to come out and look at it,” Prowl meowed back, knowing she would anyway. Because cat. “And before you say it, I know—”

“Can still  _ hear  _ it.”

“—that,” Prowl finished lamely. “You’ll just have to deal with it.” 

So would she, for that matter. Her doorwings angled back as she scanned the dark sky, looking for the telltale flickers. 

“Storm’s t’th’northwest,” Jazz said helpfully, without looking. She couldn’t understand Sundance, or Prowl when she spoke to her, but she had excellent night vision and situational awareness. “Gonna have’ta skirt it close, ’less th’wind changes. Tacking inta it. Hopefully’ll git t’th’Teeth before it actually hits us.  _ Hopefully, _ it’ll miss us completely.”

“Hope so.” Prowl shivered. The sea felt so much bigger when the waves swelled up in front of a storm, and their boat so small and fragile. “Which way’s northwest?” she asked, trying to gauge whether the patch of stars she could no longer see was still to her right. She’d had the cardinal points in her head when she’d been looking at it, familiar with the arrangement of the stars around Seadreamer and Silvercloud, but now… “So disorienting out here,” she muttered under her breath.

Jazz, overhearing her anyway, chuckled. “Wind near’a storm always comes either from it, or left-ta-right ’round th’center, as long as Skyside can be seen on a clear night. If ’e can’t, then it’s right-ta-left.”

Great. Now she was even more lost, and felt bad that Jazz had caught her complaint on top of it. “Ain’t a clear night.”

“Ain’t,” Jazz agreed easily. “But y’saw Seadreamer’n Silvercloud. They’re only gonna be visible fer a few sunrises’ worth’a sailin’ after Skyside ain’t.”

“So then…” Prowl puzzled her way through that as she spread her doors to feel the wind. “It’s that way,” she said, turning to the northwest. The sky, obviously, wasn’t any darker over there than it was anywhere else. 

A very distant flash of lightning streaked through the clouds.

“Aka. Got it, beautiful,” Jazz praised her, unnecessarily. Prowl heard the taps of her foot against the deck, a soft drumbeat that laid at the spark of many of her love’s wonderful songs, but which now she was using to count out the time between the flash and—

_ …thrrrRRRRrrmm…  _

“Still a ways off,” Jazz said, somehow divining the distance to the storm from that interval. The first time she’d done it Prowl had thought it was magic, but she insisted it wasn’t. She also hadn’t been able to explain how she’d done it in a way that made sense to Prowl, so she hadn’t managed to pick up the trick of it herself.

Yet. 

“Need me t’stop distractin’ ya?” 

“Y’ain’t distractin’,” Jazz denied. “But y’might wanna git some sleep while y’can. We git too close t’it, an’ yer gonna wanna be awake.”

“Wanna be awake, an’ won’t be able t’sleep,” Prowl said, laying back down in the hull of the catamaran. She folded down her doors and pulled the blanket back in close, letting out a soft “Eep!” of surprise when Sundance ducked beneath it unexpectedly to curl up against her feet.

“Waaaarm,” the cat purred.

Prowl chuckled. “You’re warm too, you know,” she said, but it was a good thing. The cat was a warm, soft, gently vibrating spot of comfort, and Prowl was happy to have her close.

Finding sleep again wasn’t easy, but Jazz started humming and singing to herself while she adjusted the sail. Tacking, which was kind of like sailing into the wind and kind of not, was still something Prowl found absolutely amazing about Polyhexian boats. Praxan ships couldn’t do that.

Or maybe they could… Prowl watched the city of Hightower shrink into the distance from the deck of a Praxan ship as it rose up into the sky, tacking through the clouds. They skimmed over fluffy white swells, polished metal gleaming in the sun. Then all of a sudden the clouds began to darken, rising above them and filling the sky with—

_ Wet!  _

She was startled out of her dreams by the reality of rain on her face. Prowl flinched, accidentally shifting the waterproof blanket and letting in even more. Not how she had wanted to wake up at all! But she was well and truly awake now, and turned (more carefully this time) to look up at the sky. The cloud cover came as no surprise, but it was light enough that she could actually make them out now; the rain couldn’t block out the dawn completely.

“You’re letting in all the weeeet!” Sundance complained, burrowing deeper into the blankets. “Stop it.”

“I am not.” Not on purpose, anyway. Prowl rearranged the blankets as best she could to keep the rain off the cat, resigned to the drizzle herself. It was hard to tell, with only the first hints of cloud-muted pink on the horizon, but the clouds didn’t look overly dark. “Did we get lucky with th’storm?” 

“Aka,” Jazz answered immediately. “We’re ’bout t’enter Carcharhinidae’s maw. ’S’good timing. Th’crossin’s easier durin’ high tide, and easier still after sunrise.”

“How close are we?” Prowl went ahead and climbed up onto the deck, tucking herself into the out-of-the-way spot by the mast that gave her a better vantage to see from. 

In answer Jazz simply pointed. A dark shape loomed over the water. It looked like the remains of a ship — a Praxan-style ship — but it wasn’t going anywhere, not even bobbing up and down with the waves. It looked… half eaten, even. 

“Can hear it, yeah? Like surf on th’shore, ’stead’a swells across th’open water.” Jazz’s voice broke her out of her somewhat horrified entrancement. “That’s th’waves hittin’ th’Teeth.”

Listening past the sound of the light rain, Prowl could hear what Jazz described. There were definitely obstacles in the water, and not just the ominous, indistinct wreck. 

What would it look like as they got closer?

Pulling on the rope rigging, Jazz swung the sail sideways, changing the direction of the boat. 

A breem — a sunmark, ish — later, Prowl realized that Jazz wasn’t moving closer, not right away. Instead she was circling in the water, moving first away and then closer as the sun rose more fully. The light changed, from pink to yellow, and when it hit maximum brightness, just before it rose far enough above the horizon for the clouds to darken the light, Jazz took advantage of the brief clarity to lower the sail and finally paddle them forward into the… the maw. The Teeth.

The Teeth didn’t just make a surf-like sound. Now, up close and with better light, Prowl saw that they made a surf-like line of frothed water along their edge. Something bumped against the hull of the kattumaram, making an ominous scraping sound until Jazz pushed them away with the oar.

“What was that?” 

“Tooth,” Jazz said simply, concentrating on her careful maneuvering.

Prowl didn’t pester her further, but that hadn’t really answered her question. What  _ were  _ the Teeth? What did they look like? What were they made of? She looked out over the water, but couldn’t see anything. The breaking water did a good job of disguising whatever protruded above the surface, and it was hard to tear her optics away from the looming derelict. They were still a good distance away from it, but close enough that the deep gashes in the hull and the decayed state of the metal were impossible to miss. If Jazz’s descriptions hadn’t already made the Teeth out to be intimidating, what was left of the unfortunate ship really drove home what a bad idea it would be to run into them. Or get blown into them; thank Primus the storm had missed them!

Another knock on the hull of the kattumaram drew her attention. Jazz was already pushing them away from whatever they’d struck, but Prowl moved toward it, leaving the mast to peer over the edge of the deck. It took a klik to see past the red surface to what lay beneath, but when her optics adjusted…

Eep!

Irregularly spaced, serrated spikes loomed up from the depths like a field of spears threatening to tear into the kattumaram like they obviously had the Praxan wreck. 

“They’re teeth!”

Under the blanket, Sundance sneezed in amusement. 

“Are, beautiful,” Jazz agreed absently. At least she was too busy to make fun of her observation. Prowl felt somewhat silly for it, but at the same time completely justified. Sure, Jazz had been calling them teeth the whole time, but “Carcharhinidae’s Teeth” had struck her as more of a poetic name than a literal description. The idea of the sharkticon god protecting the islands with his teeth, chewing up and spitting out any intruders, had seemed too fanciful to be real.

The metaphor didn’t look like much of a stretch now. She looked back at the, well,  _ chewed up  _ wreck, which from a distance had immediately given her the impression of being half eaten. 

Prowl felt the lurch as they moved past the breakwater and into deeper water again, though she could still see the pointed shapes below them, lurking. But, she noticed as Jazz raised the sail again and it filled with wind, there were other shapes now in addition to the spear-shapes: rounded mounds, large shelf-like structures, tiny cubes, and more tangled finger-like shapes than she could count. And fish! They darted away from the shadow of the kattumaram to hide under the rock-shapes and in rubbery weeds, but Prowl had never seen so many fish before in her life!

“Oh, wow.” It was tempting, so tempting, to jump down into the water and get a closer look! But the water was rough and the Teeth were sharp, and who knew how many of the fascinating things down there were dangerous in other ways? The open sea was not the place to risk a poison sting.

Not that, she amended when she looked up and saw the dark, distant shadows on the horizon resolve themselves into  _ islands, _ they were quite on the  _ open sea _ anymore.

“We headin’ fer one’a those?”

“Not ’nless y’wanna fight,” Jazz answered. “Still gotta couple’a sunrises before th’stars call th’truce, an’ those’re clan islands. We’re headed there.” She pointed, and Prowl could just barely make out the hulking shape still obscured by distance and clouds. Another island, easily the biggest of the bunch. “’S’Harvest Island.”

“How long ’til we reach it?” It seemed incredible that after so many cycles without anything at all on the horizon they were suddenly so close, but even though Prowl wasn’t much of a sailor (yet), she knew that what looked like a straight shot on the surface wasn’t always the case beneath the water. “Any more teeth t’go ’round?”

“Yeah…” Jazz swept her arm out to encompass the expanse of water around the islands ahead of them. “Places where it’s shallower, or during certain tides — th’sharkticon tides — th’god’ll take even careful kattumaram.”

“Ain’t gonna get us though,” Prowl said with more confidence than she felt. “Right?”

Jazz flashed a bright grin. “Ain’t! Don’t worry, beautiful. I’ve done this plenty’a times.”

Of course she had. Reassured, Prowl debated returning to the mast where it was easier to sit, or staying where she was to keep watching the water.

“Come back where it’s not wet,” Sundance urged.

“Less wet,” Prowl meowed, glancing down into the hull. “You’re missing all the fish out here by hiding in there.”

“They’ll still be there when it’s not raining.” The mound that was her familiar wiggled around, moving. Cleaning herself, Prowl guessed.

“Suit yourself.” Deciding to stay put until the water got too deep to see much of anything again, Prowl continued to watch the fish and other fascinating things in the water.

She wasn’t the only one. Uncaring about the rain, there were several places where birds circled above the waves, diving down on their unsuspecting prey. Prowl listened to their shrill cries echoing over the water, and after a while noticed other sounds as well: tetere — calling horns. 

“Who’s out there?”

“Bunch’a people,” Jazz answered. “Warriors tryin’ t’find their friends in other clans, priest-mages makin’ their arrangements t’attend the harvest, fishermechs just passin’ on gossip, or braggin’ ’bout their clans’ strength.”

So much communication hidden within the tetere music. Just another thing on the rapidly growing list of things Prowl wanted to learn. “Ain’t likely Stepper’s one’a ’em, is it?” Prowl asked, naming the only other Polyhexian she knew besides Ricochet, who was back in Hightower awaiting what was known in Praxus as the trade season rather than the harvest. 

“Prolly not, this far south.” Jazz tilted her head to listen more carefully to the news being carried by the wind. “Ain’t announcin’ ’imself if ’e is.”

Prowl nodded. Stepper was a warrior, and Jazz had told her most warriors didn’t come to Harvest Island even if in general they stayed in the islands for the season.

Tantalizing glimpses of color continued to flow by. The movement of the kattumaram and the ongoing rain made it difficult to see at times, but the hints Prowl was able to catch of the world beneath the waves made her itch to get out a journal and start taking notes. She didn’t, of course, but only because the water would have soaked the pages past usefulness and made the ink run. Maybe they could come out again on a clearer cycle so she could sketch some of the fantastic shapes: knobbed branches and fan-like extensions growing out from some sort of substructure that was itself made up of different components, rough looking blobs and soft looking wrinkles that didn’t actually move with the current. The rusty color of the water and the dark clouds had Prowl doubting which colors she was seeing, exactly, but there was no mistaking the sheer  _ variety  _ of color — and many of the fish and other creatures she spotted were sporting more than one! 

The sound of a new tetere very close by made Prowl look up just as Jazz added her own greeting and announcements to the intangible streams of gossip floating through the air. There was another kattumaram only a short distance away, the same size as theirs but otherwise different in just about every conceivable way. The hull was stained a different color, the pattern of lines over the base looking somewhat wind worn, but the pictures painted on the sails were vibrant and optic catching. Prowl tried to resolve the stylized art into an actual creature, wondering if it was a generic representation or a specific spirit guide.

One of the two Polyhexians on board, a femme wearing several strands of beads with prominent kelapa shell charms and armor similar to Jazz’s, continued to play on the tetere while watching them, leaving the sailing of their vessel up to her partner. He was looking too though, when he could spare a moment from the ropes, and Prowl saw them both staring at her.

“She wants t’know where Rico is,” Jazz said, taking a moment from her own horn to steer them around a fan-like structure of spikes. “Curious ’bout ya. Don’t see many Prax this far from th’mainland. I’m tellin’ ’er what a good mate y’are.”

“Good thing’m used ta everyone lookin’ at me,” Prowl said, EM field flushing slightly at the idea of Jazz bragging about her. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d done it, but it wasn’t considered “proper” in a Praxan court. Which this wasn’t, but Prowl was still here as an ambassador, not just Jazz’s bonded. How much of her bragging was a cultural thing, and how much was just a Jazz thing? There wasn’t much she could really do about it, not here and now, but it would be unfortunate if Jazz’s enthusiasm negatively impacted her ability to perform that function.

At least the musical exchanges were interesting, and beautiful, to listen to. Quick, enthusiastic snatches of notes flew back and forth, interspersed with longer undulating sounds that carried across the water, cut through the rain, and were answered by others in other boats. Prowl wished she knew what they were saying!

“Noisy,” Sundance mewled plaintively. “I was napping!”

Prowl stifled a giggle. 

Eventually the other warriors did an impressive turn, almost spinning their kattumaram in place in a manner that left Prowl gaping as they cut away across the water. Wow. 

Jazz sent a  _ blat! _ of discordant notes after them.

With a smile, Prowl started looking for other nearby kattumaram. Ships were large, expensive, and therefore numbered few in Praxus’ port cities. By comparison, Polyhexian boats were… well, still expensive, she’d been told, but smaller and much, much more numerous. It was still impressive how many little sails came flitting into view. So many colors! And unlike the fish, they weren’t obscured by the rusty water! Prowl was able to make out all kinds of patterns and details, and she quickly realized that once she knew what to look for, she’d be able to identify the different boats and their sailors by their decorations at a distance, even through the rain. 

No one else came as close as that first boat, which Prowl eventually realized was partly due to them continuing past the loose ring of kattumaram toward the island. It was impossible to miss, the large mountains rising up into the rain dominating the center, looming ever closer as Jazz alternated between careful maneuvering through the fields of Teeth and cheerfully adding to the omnipresent conversation floating through the air. Still, when Prowl could finally make out the details of the veritable jungle of crystal growth sloping down to the shore through the rain, it seemed they were suddenly  _ right there _ and it was all around them. 

With her oar, Jazz pushed them through the surf and the crystals growing along the shore, and out into the water of a wide river delta. The birdcalls changed, from the fairly regular calls of seabirds to a deafening kaleidoscope of competing songs. Once in the shelter of the crystal forest, the noise of the surf dropped off sharply, and Prowl could hear the much softer sounds of Jazz paddling up the river.

“Welcome t’Harvest Island,” Jazz said, gesturing at the thick, tangled forest around them then up to the towering mountains just visible above the canopy before they disappeared into the low clouds.

“’S like nothin’ I’ve ever seen,” Prowl said, trying to take in everything at once. The wild landscape along the coast of Praxus had been similar in some ways, but this… This crystal forest was so  _ dense, _ absolutely packed with enormous trees standing over a riot of smaller growths as varied and vibrant as the shapes in the water. It didn’t look like the kind of forest one could walk through, it was already so full!

There were no roads or signs of a city or town nearby. Shouldn’t there have been something by now? 

“’S’gonna be here,” Jazz said suddenly, abruptly grounding the boat in the sandy riverbank. Prowl blinked. But there was nothing here! It was just a spot where a cluster of crystals had fallen over and taken down those around it, exposing the glittering black sand.

“Where’s everyone else?” There weren’t any other kattumaram in sight now, even when she looked back down the river. 

“Truce ain’t been called yet,” Jazz answered, pushing the kattumaram farther up the small beach. “No food-findin’ on Harvest Island ’til it is, so no one comes. But don’t have t’worry ’bout raids.”

Raids? Prowl blinked, then shook herself. Of course storm season raids were still a thing, even though they hadn’t experienced any on their way in. Perfectly alright with not changing that now, she got up and helped Jazz get the kattumaram situated. This part, at least, she knew how to do, and could do well. “That mean goin’ back out t’catch everything?”

“Yep. Plenty’a fish though.”

“No kiddin’,” Prowl said, thinking of how many they’d just sailed over to get here. They also had some food stored on the kattumaram, which she felt more drawn to at the moment. Fishing could wait until tomorrow when they had the sun again, even if it was still raining. It was late enough now that the sky was beginning to darken with more than the clouds, and Jazz definitely deserved a break.

Evidently Jazz felt the same. She threw the cage of nijan that had survived the trip uneaten into the water and started digging into their stored food. “Wanna pick a spot fer ya t’sleep, or spend th’night on th’kattumaram?”

It was tempting to choose to spend the night truly sleeping on the new island, but the kattumaram was already set up to sleep in comfortably, even with the rain, and Jazz was tired whether she’d admit it or not. Setting up a new place for them to sleep wasn’t something she should have to worry about now. “Kattumaram’s good,” Prowl said without regret. “Won’t be movin’ fer a change either way, since we’re beached ’stead’a anchored.”

Jazz laughed. “’S’true. Feels weird.” She came up with a waterproofed bag of (now less than crispy) spicy, oxidized hexbugs for them to eat. She jumped down from the boat and lowered herself to the wet sand without hesitation. “Come eat, an’ we’ll explore a bit before sleepin’. Y’have yer light-spell, right?”

“Do.” Prowl climbed down more sedately and settled beside her, a bit more careful of the sand. There was no avoiding it completely of course, but arranging the sarong around her hips so her legs were mostly on top of the fabric helped keep the stuff from working into her joints where it could itch.

No sooner had she got herself situated than Sundance meowed loudly, complaining that they were all the way over  _ there, _ when they should be  _ over here.  _ “Who’s going to feed me?”

Jazz looked back at the kattumaram, rather bemused. She hadn’t understood the words themselves, of course, but she’d heard that particular yowl enough to recognize it (and wasn’t that a weird thought in itself: that Jazz was familiar enough with familiars to know when the cat was talking and even guess what she was saying?). “Whoever heard of a shipcat who didn’t like water?”

“’S common enough on th’mainland. Maybe that’s why we call ’em  _ house,”  _ there was no Polyhexian equivalent, “cats instead.” 

Jazz shrugged and snuggled up against Prowl. “’S’weird. Sooo many people… Still ain’t sure how y’found space fer ’em all.”

Prowl stopped herself from trying to translate the concepts of urban planning into Polyhexian. She didn’t have the words, and didn’t know how to ask for them. Not a processor ache she needed right now. Instead, she settled for reaching back and tapping the side of the kattumaram. “I can feed you if you come over here,” she told Sundance. “You won’t get that wet.”

“Hungry,” the cat whined; she must have moved because the meows were much closer, if still muffled by the blanket.

“Hungry or wet, you have to decide.” Prowl wrapped one arm around Jazz as she continued to tap. “I’m still tryin’ t’picture what it’ll be like here,” she admitted. “I know ya said Praxus was big, but… I guess we’re all just used to it.”

“Sure.”

“I’m lookin’ forward t’seein’ though. This place is just…” Prowl trailed off, looking up into the trees. “What’re they called?”

“Kumula’au,” which meant “crystal tree”, the smartaft. “Pohon, pokok, rakau…” Jazz started listing off so many kinds, pointing to each one, that Prowl’s processor was very quickly spinning. 

“Slow down, I can’t keep up!” she laughed, excited by how unfamiliar it all was. “What’s  _ that  _ one, with all th’branchin’ pieces dippin’ down inta th’river?”

“’S’a bakau, a…” Jazz paused, trying to find the words in either the trade argot or her slowly growing vocabulary of Praxan words. “Water maze? They grow where th’river water mixes with th’sea.”

“That mean ya have ’em on Rainclouds too?”

“Yeah. All’a th’islands have ’em.”

“They look like the perfect thing for a cat to play on,” Prowl said to Sundance, still trying to coax her out from under the blankets. “Lots of twisty places to run above the water, sheltered from the rain by the tops of the trees…” 

“Nope. I live here now.” The blanket bumped against Prowl’s hand. “Feed me.”

Prowl laughed again. “Says she’s moved in,” she told Jazz. “And that she wants t’be fed.”

Jazz held out the bag of hexbugs so she could more easily reach them. “There’s enough fer all’a’us.”

“Well then, I’ll just satisfy someone,” Prowl took one of the bugs and brought it up to the moving blanket, where it very quickly disappeared, “and take a few fer myself.” They were still tasty, even if they didn’t have the same crunch as freshly toasted ones. The most important thing about eating hexbugs, as far as Prowl was concerned, was that they weren’t  _ moving. _

Some sort of bird started singing, a bright, harsh,  _ demanding _ song, and Jazz pointed to the mechanimal in question. It was little more than a black shape in the trees against the deep blue of the darkening sky. “’S’a kokako.”

Prowl absolutely did not let out an excited squeak. “A real one?!” She’d heard so many stories about them! “Ohh, I don’t wanna scare it away!” But she couldn’t  _ see  _ it!

Jazz laughed. She unwound a string of beads from her wrist and rattled it so that it made a series of clinking sounds. The bird stopped calling to eye them with interested yellow optics, tilting its head one way, then the next. Jazz tossed the beads up—

With a flutter of metallic feathers, the kokako swooped down, almost brushing Prowl’s head with its wings as it snatched the beads from midair.

“Eep!” Reflexively Prowl ducked, but then just as quickly brought her hand up to shield her optics from the rain so she could watch it fly away with its prize. “It’s so… big,” she said, blurting out the first of her impressions. “When y’said th’kokako was a bird I thought smaller, like th’rock doves in th’capital, or th’koekoea in Hightower.”

Jazz chuckled. “Toroa’re bigger.”

“How much bigger?” The largest bird Prowl had seen with her own optics was a hawk, which had perched on — and was about the size of — the forearm of the mech flying it, but she had read of even larger species. 

Jazz held out her hands wide, flapping them a little to indicate wings. That was… a pretty big wingspan. Much larger than that hawk’s.

"Where d'they live?"

“Th’sea,” Jazz said carelessly. “Could’a maybe seen one durin’ th’trip, but didn’t. Prolly avoidin’ th’storms, like sensible critters.” She chuckled. “Won’t see one near th’islands. They don’t ever come that close t’land.”

They didn't come close to land? "But how's a  _ bird _ live out at sea all th'time? Don't they git tired?"

“Guess they don’t.”

Huh. Well, maybe mysterious giant sea birds didn't get tired, but Polyhexian sailors certainly did. "Should eat," Prowl said, taking another handful of the hexbugs before nudging the bag at Jazz.

Prowl didn’t have to tell her twice; Jazz dug into the spicy bugs and started eating with gusto. Sundance continued to whine about being hungry, but refused to come out from under the blanket. The darkness made the overhanging crystal canopy feel closer, more intimate. Prowl heard the kokako (or another) call out, answered by a second, then a third. Hexbugs, other birds, something that sounded strangely like a group of mechs laughing hysterically, and other, even more bizarre noises filled in the silence.

"It stole yer bracelet," Prowl realized, belatedly. "Sorry."

“Didn’t steal it. Gave it up.” Jazz chuckled. “Gimme a kiss?” She pressed herself against Prowl’s frame. “Call it even?”

Prowl still felt a little bad about it, but if Jazz wasn't upset… "Can do that," she said, dropping the last hexbug in her hand under the blanket for Sundance so she could wrap both arms around her mate. Jazz always wanted kisses, but she'd been too busy sailing to share very many the last several cycles. Now that they weren't in danger of drifting off course or running into anything, they could do some catching up. "How many beads were on it?"

“Hundred,” Jazz lied shamelessly.

"Uh huh." Prowl grinned and brushed their noses together. "Pretty sure it was closer ta twenty," she said, then angled her head to bring their mouths together for the first kiss. Jazz purred at the contact, deep in her chassis. Her lips were warm where they met, and tasted of salt-rust water and spice and something metallic and wonderful underneath that was all  _ Jazz. _

Prowl quickly lost interest in counting. Even if they had agreed on a number, she wouldn't have stopped there; having Jazz in her arms, their sparks separated only by their respective armor,  _ calling _ in that way that felt so right… "Love ya," Prowl whispered between kisses.

“Love ya…” Prowl heard a  _ click, _ Jazz’s armor shifting—

The kokako called again. This time Prowl heard a fourth and fifth voice join the rest of the flock, and Jazz cursed. “Gotta put up th’kahawai,” she apologized, pulling away from their embrace. “Still wanna explore?”

"Do," Prowl said, watching her curiously. "Could just sleep'n wait ’til morning though."

_ “Ya  _ can just sleep.  _ I _ gotta put up th’kahawai tonight,” Jazz corrected.

_ "We _ can sleep, once I help ya with th’ribbons."

Jazz chuckled. “Kay.” She dropped a quick kiss on Prowl’s nose, then scrambled to her feet.

Prowl had seen other boats, in Hightower, with their kahawai up, waving and flapping in the wind. They always looked so festive! Praxan-made mylar scraps seemed to be a popular material, which Smokescreen always kept in stock in his shop. She hadn’t seen Jazz’s set yet, and was mildly surprised when, glittery as they were under her light spell, they weren’t just Ricochet and Jazz’s favored colors of blue and yellow. Instead they were  _ all  _ different colors, a mixture of textures and sparkles and garish hues, all tied to their anchoring string with complicated knots.

"Why so many colors?" Prowl asked, holding an armful of the things.

“Ain’t any point tryin’ t’make ’em match,” Jazz answered, taking and laying the strings of ribbons out at the four corners of the kattumaram. “Now,” she grinned, showing her fangs mischievously, “y’take this,” she held out the end of one of the strings, “an’ climb up an’ attach it t’th’top’a th’mast.”

Ack! Climb? Prowl wasn't very good at climbing. She had insisted on helping though, and the kattumaram wouldn't be rocking beneath her while she made the attempt, so she resolutely took the string and turned to the mast.

It was awfully tall.

“Hold th’kahawai in yer teeth,” Jazz advised behind her, “an’ use th’ropes fer th’sail. Go slowly. Ain’t a need t’rush tonight.”

Right. She could do this. Trailing the kahawai over her shoulder so they wouldn't be in the way, Prowl bit down on the end of the string and reached for the ropes. It wasn't easy. Her arms weren't used to supporting her full weight, and it was difficult to find good purchase for her feet. She slipped a couple of times, but eventually she did make it to the top, where— how was she supposed to tie the things in place? She was using both hands to hold herself up!

“Climb around t’th’right,” Jazz called up. “’S’a pair’a foot-notches, t’give y’leverage an’ grip with yer knees.”

After some more fumbling around, Prowl finally found them. The notches were, of course, positioned for Jazz and Ricochet, who were both shorter than Prowl and so were higher up than she'd been looking for them at first. Once she got her feet in them though, she was able to grip with her knees just like Jazz had said to and free her hands to take the string from her teeth and secure it to the top of the mast. Knot tying was one skill she'd gotten quite good at already! Even by Jazz's standards.

"Ta-da," she said. "Ain't comin' undone now!"

“Good!” On her end, Jazz pulled the string of ribbons taut and they immediately started flapping in the wind. “Three more!”

"Three more t'tie up here?"

“Yup!”

"Well why didn't ya tell me that t'start with?" She could have at least done them two at a time!

“Didn’t ask.”

Brat. Prowl let out a huff, then reached into the bag at her waist. The right word and gesture combined with the small scraps of wood and string from her stash of spell components generated an invisible helping hand; Prowl waved it down to snatch the end of one of the other strings and bring it to her.

Jazz laughed, then whistled in an encouraging cheer as the end of the string landed in Prowl’s outstretched hand.

“Don’t have’ta keep climbin’ up an’ down now,” Prowl said smugly, though she was proud of having made it up in the first place. Technically she could have tried using the spell to tie the strings from the ground, if she’d thought of it sooner, but this way she could be more sure of the knots and practice (a reasonable amount of) climbing.

“Don’t,” Jazz agreed. “Lemme know when yer ready fer me t’pull it.”

One by one they got the rest of the kahawai tied down, and Prowl dismissed her spell and came back down. Climbing down wasn’t always easier than climbing up, but in this case it wasn’t so much climbing as a controlled slide down the mast, and she accomplished it with a relative amount of grace. She stayed on her feet when she landed, anyway.

“Looks festive.”

Jazz looked at her quizzically, then shrugged. “Sure.” She sat on the edge of the kattumaram’s hull and held out her hand enticingly. “Come rest?”

“Long as it’s with ya,” Prowl said, gladly taking Jazz’s hand and letting her pull them down onto the sleeping pad. Sundance meowed in protest as they disturbed her, darting down the length of the hull under the blanket to growl at them. 

“Room fer all three’a us,” Jazz assured, arranging their frames so they fit. She even (fearlessly, as far as Prowl was concerned) snatched up the hissing, clawing ball of irritation Sundance had become to snug her down in one of the comfy little spaces between them. Then she pulled the brightly patterned blanket/tarp over them all. It was a tight fit, but almost instantly it was warm and cozy. “See?”

Sundance gave one more hiss on principle, even as she settled into her new spot. “Meanie,” she complained. “Was comfy where I was.”

“And you’ll be even more comfortable here,” Prowl said. The cat was just annoyed because it hadn’t been her idea. 

Jazz scritched along Sundance’s back, making her lean into it with a purr as she settled down. “Good?” she asked, already sounding sleepy. 

“Aw, she’s fine.” Prowl relaxed and dismissed her light spell, gently stroking her own hand along Jazz’s plating. “Love ya.”

“Love ya too.” Jazz sighed with her whole frame, dropping into recharge instantly.

Prowl quickly discovered she couldn’t do the same, despite the lack of movement beneath them. She was too aware of the simultaneous quiet and cacophony all around. The lack of mechmade sounds she had only just started to get used to on the boat created a void, but at the same time… The sea hadn’t been silent by any means, but there the sounds had all been of wind and waves and splashes. Storm sounds and rain. Occasional clicks or the distant songs of sea creatures. Here she could still hear the sounds of the water from the river and nearby sea, but the rain was louder on land, somehow, falling on the forest and sand and dripping through the crystals. 

And so many mechanimal sounds!

Many of them were birds, she was sure. The kokako couldn’t be the only ones out there, given the diversity that so far seemed to be characteristic of Polyhex. What did the others look like? Were they big? Small? Colorful? Camouflaged? She really would have enjoyed exploring, but Jazz had fallen asleep so quickly that she couldn’t regret her choice. She just also couldn’t follow her as easily into recharge when her processor was so wide awake and full of questions.

She told herself she’d be able to see things better when the sun was up. Jazz might have excellent night vision, but Prowl’s Praxan optics definitely preferred more light. She had her light spell, true, but she couldn’t see outside it, and as she’d discovered hunting hexbugs, the light could scare things away. Not always a bad thing, and other things were actually attracted to the light, but still…

A crash of thunder suddenly echoed overhead, startlingly close. Jazz didn’t so much as twitch, but it made Prowl flinch. That had been  _ loud.  _

Sundance tucked herself up closer to her, burying her face against Prowl’s plating. “Don’t like it.”

“I don’t either.” She couldn’t see the flash of lightning that would herald another crash from inside the blanket (which she now had  _ no _ desire to crawl out of to explore!), but the wind through the crystals was growing louder, and many of the animal sounds quieted or dropped off entirely as the rain worsened.

Another crack overhead reverberated across the island. There was no denying it: the storm they’d skirted earlier, or one very like it, was now practically on top of them. Prowl shivered, feeling awfully small and vulnerable. She’d been afraid of running into a storm at sea, and it hadn’t occurred to her that it might be just as bad on land. There was nothing between them and the elements but a thin layer of fabric! Rain thudded against it, drumming into her plating right through it, and it did absolutely nothing to muffle the sound. Thunderstorms happened in the capital sometimes, yes, but there Prowl had thick stone walls all around her — a protection she was sorely missing right now.

About the only saving grace of the whole situation was that if she was whimpering, she couldn’t hear herself over the storm. 

Jazz made a soft  _ coo-ruu _ sound of comfort, without stirring, that Prowl felt more than heard. How was she sleeping through this?! Prowl clung to her, trying to tell herself that if Jazz wasn’t worried she probably didn’t need to be either, but it was only so effective. She was rather forcibly reminded of her first night out on the kattumaram, terrified that she would fall out of the boat and drown. She hadn’t been able to sleep then and she couldn’t sleep now, flinching anew with each clap of thunder. 

This time there was no pink star to focus on and lull her into resting despite the circumstances…

A flash of light, bright as daylight but lasting only a nanoklik, lit up the forest, almost simultaneous with the next thunderous roar from the clouds.

“Ah!”

_ Hisss! _

“Coo-ruu…” Jazz murmured, wiggling more on top of Prowl as Sundance wedged herself deeper between their frames for protection. Prowl let her, helped her even, as though putting Jazz between her and the storm would keep her safe.

It had to stop. Eventually it had to stop. Right?

She clung to Jazz while the heavens roared like… like… like a lot of thunder that was really, really, scarily close! She had no way to track how long it took, and it did seem to take forever, for the thunder to move off, quieting in the distance.

Leaving behind a smothering blanket of loud, heavy rain.

Utterly exhausted from holding herself so tense for so long, Prowl didn’t even notice when her relief became unconsciousness.

.

.

.

Slowly she became aware of dozens of bright, cheerful birdsongs. The blanket had been pushed down around their shoulders and sunlight warmed her frame. But it was the discordant cawing of two kokako right above them that really pulled Prowl to full wakefulness.

“Wha…?” Feeling a bit stiff, she onlined her optics and saw— “Hey! Stop that!” The birds were perched on the strings of kahawai, busily and surprisingly deftly working the knots undone.

One of them stopped and looked down at Prowl, an uncanny amount of intelligence and understanding it its gaze, then cawed at its companion, who made a very mech-like chuckle as it finally worked free a bright green strip of mylar to brandish it triumphantly. With an outraged call, the first snatched at the strip with its beak, trying to grab it.

“Cut it out!” Prowl started to get up, only for Jazz’s arms to tighten around her. “But they’re stealin’ th’ribbons!”

Jazz chuckled. “’S’what they’re there for. Least it ain’t tearin’ strips off th’sail, or takin’ m’fishing floats, or unravelin’ any’a th’ropes we actually need.”

Escaping the fight over the green mylar ribbon, the one who’d untied it flew off into the crystal trees. The other made a series of unmusical grumbling sounds, then got to work on a bundle of bright pink tangled strings. Prowl watched, certain it wouldn’t be able to get it… but it did. And, in the process, scattered every single string in the bundle across the deck. It didn’t just want  _ a  _ bright strip of mylar, it wanted a  _ specific  _ strip, and the mess it left behind when it flew off with its prize was impressive.

Jazz just laughed at her incredulous stare. Stretching as she stood, she climbed out of the hull and starting picking up the discarded ribbons. “I’m gonna rebraid these an’ hang ’em back up. Wanna dig out somethin’ t’eat?”

“Sure.” Checking that Sundance wasn’t about to be underfoot, Prowl got up as well. There was no sign of her familiar as she smoothed the blanket back into place; probably off exploring now that it wasn’t raining. With a few stretches of her own, Prowl went over and started rummaging through their provisions. They still had the nijan in the river, of course, but she was sure they had some of the gelled fish wrapped in rubbery seaweed too, and some ika.

She came across the gelled fish first, and decided to go with that. There was enough left to both have some now and still have a little left over. She turned back to Jazz, who was clinging to the mast to retie the braided strings back onto the line…

There was a kokako watching her, standing on the deck of the kattumaram like it owned it. It tilted its head and Prowl saw one yellow optic focus on the food she was holding. It hopped toward her.

“Oh no!” She tucked the food against her torso, quickly checking that the rest was secure in its basket where the bird couldn’t (easily) get at it. “Y’can’t have this.”

The bird made one of those very mech-like chuckle sounds, then cawed demandingly. It hopped forward again.

“Kia!” Jazz called, landing hard on the deck practically on top of the kokako, startling it into a panicked flight. 

Prowl jumped a little bit too, but relaxed quickly enough. “There a less dramatic way’a scarin’ ’em off?”

“’S more fun this way.” Jazz chuckled. She held out her hand. “Hungry?”

“Bit, yeah.” At the moment she still felt more stiff than hungry after staying up who knew how long with the storm in the night. Prowl passed the fish over, but while Jazz accepted the packet, she didn’t let Prowl pull away, instead pulling her close. 

“…Never been out inna storm like that,” Prowl mumbled into Jazz’s shoulder after a moment, embarrassed now that it was all over and nothing bad had happened. “I couldn’t sleep ’til th’thunder stopped.”

“Coo-ruu… I’m sorry I slept through it,” Jazz murmured, unhesitantly wrapping her arms more tightly around Prowl and holding her. “Can make ya a sleepin’ hollow under the trees. Stack up some fallen crystals t’make ya a cave, maybe? But th’kattumaram’s one’a th’safest places durin’ thunder like that.”

“Thought it must be or ya wouldn’t’ve slept through it, but…” Would a cave help? Probably not a whole lot. “Maybe I should try a sleep spell next time.”

Jazz twitched. “Shouldn’t do that.”

“No?”

“Can’t wake up if y’need ta,” Jazz explained, petting Prowl comfortingly. “Someone — kokako maybe — could steal,” claws teased over Prowl’s sarong then flicked at the bracelets on one of her wrists, “all’a yer things.” 

“Ah. That’d be bad, yeah.” It wasn’t the only reason she might need to wake up suddenly in the night, now that she was thinking about it. The knowledge that this life required more vigilance was there, but not the habit. “Won’t be doin’ that then.”

“Good.” Jazz stroked down her back one more time, then tugged them both to sit next to the mast. “Hungry now?”

“Little bit more,” Prowl said with a smile. “Gimme.”

Jazz grinned.

They dug into the gelled fish. Prowl still wasn’t sure how it was made — the weeds they were wrapped in was significant, she knew that — but no two of these packets had tasted quite the same. Even when they’d been made with the same fish! This cycle’s was on the sour side, and Prowl chewed slowly to savor it. The flavor was stronger in the gel than the fish, and she saved a sliver of it for last. Mmm!

Prowl felt Jazz’s lips against the back of her helm, giving her an affectionate kiss. “Got th’whole island t’ourselves fer a bit…”

“And it’s sunny,” Prowl said, looking up at the bright sky. There were still some clouds, but for now they were lighter, floating higher above the tops of the crystal forest. So much of the mountain was visible! “Come look around with me?”

“Sure.” Another kiss. “Lead th’way, beautiful.”

Lead the way? She didn’t know where to begin! Everything was calling out to her, begging to be examined up close. There were so many things she didn’t even have the names of — so she started with the one she did. “There,” she said, climbing to her feet. “I wanna look at th’bakau. Are they strong enough t’climb on?”

“Some’a ’em,” Jazz drawled.

“Just some, huh?” She’d just have to go slowly then. Jazz wouldn’t tell her when she was about to step on something that would give way beneath her, if the worst that would come of it was a short tumble into the water. Prowl could survive that, even if Sundance would have cried that she was dying and railed against the Unfairness Of It All.

She didn’t see Sundance among the tangled bakau branches just above the water’s surface when they reached them, but she kept an optic out for her as she took her first step out onto one of the larger structures. There were all kinds of little hiding places to explore, and Prowl knew small mechanimals — prey for a hungry cybercat — would be drawn to them.

“They only grow in th’water?”

“Yeah, up t’where nothin’ but th’highest tides’ll touch.” Jazz followed, scampering almost effortlessly over the tangled structures to scale a trunk and perch in a low branch of crystal that seemed to be listing toward the water. “Salt’n rust from th’sea’ll kill most’a th’land crystals, fresh water from th’rivers’ll kill th’rubber weeds’n sea crystals.”

“So these have th’place all t’themselves.” So to speak. Beneath the branches Prowl could see the darting shapes of fish, and already several hexbugs were investigating her as a new perch. There were birds calling overhead, many of the same calls she’d heard last night… The entire area was absolutely full of life. “Can ya make anything from ’em, or just leave ’em t’grow?”

Jazz shrugged. “Priest-mages make all sorts’a things from all sorts’a things. I dunno anything, ’cept jewelry… Oh! Can collect salt.” She skittered down and over the rooting formations to a clump of crystals that looked to be a grey species of the bakau. She scratched at one of the bumpy looking facets then came back to Prowl and held out her finger. “Taste?”

Prowl leaned forward and licked her finger. Yup! Definitely salt! “That’s good?”

“Aa.” Jazz nodded. “There’s a bunch’a ways t’git it. This is one’a ’’em.”

“Nice.” Prowl wondered what they did with it, but she could ask later. Right now she wanted to get a closer look at the branches a few feet up ahead. It looked like two of the trees had grown together, weaving in and out around each other.

Jazz licked her finger clean and turned to look in the direction Prowl was. Prowl kind of hoped she’d climb over there. The islander climbed too fast and too gracefully for Prowl to ever replicate her movements — she could barely  _ see _ how she was doing it! — but watching Jazz might have given her a place to start, some idea of what footholds were strong enough to hold a femme’s weight. But instead Jazz simply crouched, then leaped up to grab the branch directly above them, shaking the root-branch Prowl was trying to stand on!

“Hey!” She put out an arm to stabilize herself. It worked, until it didn’t. The branch only dipped down into the water at first as she leaned on it, but then it snapped, and Prowl overbalanced right into the river.  _ Splash! _

The water was warm, brackish, and calm, and Prowl was suddenly very glad of all that swimming practice Jazz had forced her to do, since it was also deeper than it looked. She grasped at one of the slippery root-branches, and growled in frustration when she couldn’t find purchase on it. Why didn’t Praxans have  _ claws, _ like Polyhexians?! 

Treading water and clinging to the crystals, Prowl looked up to see Jazz crawling down from the canopy into the root-branches like she was one of the critters who called the crystals home herself. Her claws dug easily into the slippery structures for purchase, sliding through mud and picking around all the creatures, like clumps of midye, that lived here. A small nijan skittered over her hand and she ignored it, letting it move on unbothered. She was watching, but not making any move to help.

Surrounded on all sides by the bakau root-branches, Prowl felt rather caged in.

“No fair,” she complained, flicking her hand through the water to send a splash up at Jazz.

With a chuckle, Jazz shook the water away, shaking all of the nearby root-branches in the process; she wasn’t the least bit dislodged by the movement. “Deserved that,” she acknowledged.

“Did,” Prowl huffed, even though she wasn’t really mad. Jazz hadn’t done it on purpose, after all, and it wasn’t  _ her  _ fault Prowl couldn’t climb back up from where she was. She looked around, trying to figure out a path out of the crystals into open water. She needed room to move.

Jazz didn’t offer to show her a way, though Prowl was sure she could figure one out faster than she could. But nope! Her mate just waited and watched.

Maybe if…

Prowl pulled herself forward, letting her lower body trail through the water after her. She tried to keep her doors relaxed and loose; if they tensed and flared outward, she’d never get out of here! Squirming through one gap, she found herself pushing from one root-branch to the next. Knobby, dulled crystal points poked her from all sides, but they didn’t do more than add more mud to the grime collecting on her armor, so she ignored them and twisted to pull herself through another gap.

It seemed to take forever, but she eventually reached the edge and kicked to push herself out into the calm, open water of the river. 

“Aka! Good!” Jazz called out in praise, having followed and was now perched on a clump of root-branches.

Of course Prowl still couldn’t climb back up onto the bakau with her. She was stuck in the river.

“See  _ someone  _ managed not t’fall in,” Prowl said, splashing at her again.

“Haven’t fallen from a bakau since I was a newlin’,” Jazz bragged, shaking the water off. She backed away, climbing back up to where she could stand…

Then with a yip, she ran forward, leaping off a branch at the edge of the stand Prowl could have  _ sworn _ wouldn’t hold her weight, and somersaulted into the water with a splash that hit Prowl squarely in the face.

Now  _ that  _ she’d done on purpose.

Spluttering slightly, Prowl waited for Jazz to come back up. She was going to get her for that! 

She shrieked as something — Jazz — pulled her under the water. It wasn’t quite the panic she’d had over being fully submerged when they’d begun her swimming lessons, but it still made her a little anxious. Her systems weren’t designed to go as long as Jazz’s without air, and she’d need to surface well before her. But Jazz knew that, and she didn’t need to go up immediately, so Prowl focused on not-panicking and shoving at Jazz for the affront of ducking her.

Jazz let go and Prowl briefly saw a flash of blue from her sarong as she eeled through the murky water.  _ Scrap.  _ Now she was going to lose her, which meant as soon as she surfaced and pulled in fresh air, she was going to get pulled under again. She still didn’t know how Jazz always knew where things were in the water. More of that magic-that-wasn’t, probably. Prowl, meanwhile, could barely see, and only knew which way was up because it was opposite the drag pulling her down.

As she’d thought, she saw no sign of Jazz as she broke the surface and gulped air into her engine before being pulled under again. This time instead of shoving she grabbed, blunt fingers attempting to close around Jazz’s arm so she could pull them both up.

They ended up wrestling and splashing in the water, shrieking playfully at each other like a pair of newlings. It was a lot of fun, and it didn’t matter that Jazz was going easy on her. Prowl was outmatched and she knew it, but all the same couldn’t stop smiling.

When Prowl just couldn’t keep swimming any longer, she clung to the root structures of the nearest bakau to rest. Jazz was still kicking effortlessly through the water. She was smiling too. “I really do need t’look inta magical claws,” Prowl said somewhat breathlessly. “Ain’t no way I’m gettin’ back up in th’crystals without goin’ back in t’shore first with these.” She wiggled the fingers of one hand in demonstration.

“Could,” Jazz insisted optimistically, “but not right now.” With a heave, her claws dug into the slippery structures and she hauled herself up, then crouched and held out a hand in offer to help Prowl up. Prowl looked at it, confused, but took it all the same. 

“Not so tired I couldn’t keep swimmin’,” she said, even as she gratefully settled onto the roots.

“All th’way back to th’kattumaram?” Jazz asked archly. “Prolly’s th’nearest bit’a clear shore…”

“Oh. ’Kay, maybe not that far,” Prowl admitted. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” She shook herself, sending water and bits of mud flying everywhere. Prowl ducked her head to keep any of it from getting in her optics and didn’t mimic her. Not here, not where she could all too easily fall back in the water. That shaking maneuver wasn’t one she could do without flailing, and anyway, it didn’t leave her feeling satisfactorily clean. She’d wash properly when they were back on the shore.

Or maybe once they were done exploring, so she didn’t lose any time with the sun. The clouds were looking a bit heavier, though they weren’t yet threatening, and it spurred her curiosity. “Show me where everyone gathers?”

“Will!” Jazz bounded off through the tangle of bakau, leaving Prowl to pick her way more slowly across and through the root-branches. She did fairly well, though in one place she had to take a quick step back when a root that she’d thought would take her weight proved to be unstable, and once the kattumaram was back in sight she misjudged another cluster and couldn’t stop herself from sliding right down the sinking branches into the river again.

She slapped the surface of the water in frustration. It wasn’t fair!

Jazz paused, looking back. Prowl hoped she’d come offer a hand up again, but this time she just watched, waiting for her to work her way out of the tangle and into the open river by herself. At least this time she was close to a section of shore she could climb out of!

As soon as her feet were solid beneath her, Jazz splashed out into the water and swept her up into a hug. The embrace did a good deal to make Prowl feel better about falling again, especially when she picked up on the pride under the happiness in Jazz’s field. “I did okay?” Prowl asked, hugging back.

“Yer doin’ great, beautiful.” Jazz kissed her. “Come on. Th’priest-mages’ll come up away from th’boats t’settle.”

The priest-mages would? There was a distinction there that was only now penetrating, even though it wasn’t the first time Jazz had said something like that. “Yer stayin’ with the boat?”

“Aa.” Jazz tugged her by the hand up into the underbrush. “With th’warriors, those that come.” The bakau were very quickly replaced with other crystals, and thick metallic pole-like growths. “Here. Prolly clear these,” she said when they reached a sort of field filled almost exclusively with the poles. She reached out and shook one of them, sending a bird into startled flight. “Can use ’em fer… bunch’a things. Fires mostly. That’ll make space for th’priest-mages and the newlings.”

“Here?” There was a lot that would need to be cleared away, but at the same time the area struck Prowl as— well, small. Would there really be enough room? 

“Yeah. Not everyone’ll stay close. Mechs’n femmes’ll make their sleeping hollows out inta th’forest, wherever they like, but this’ll be th’center, where th’chiefs build their camps.”

That made more sense. It was still going to be a lot of work. “Is it always here, every harvest?”

“Ish. ’S easier t’clear th’ohe,” she shook the pole-like growth again, “than th’bigger crystals. ’S most important there’s a place fer th’boats t’come ashore, or anchor, that ain’t further upriver than th’bakau.”

“Why? Does th’river git too narrow fer boats?”

“Gets too rocky t’come ashore first.”

“Aa.” Prowl reached out for one of the ohe stalks, testing its flexibility. It was relatively rigid, but pushed aside enough that she could walk forward into the field. There was no real path through them, though some areas were more overgrown than others. She heard things startle and rustle out of her way, but wasn’t able to get a good look at them. “Glitchmice?”

“Yeah. Other things too.” Jazz sniffed. “Maoa, island boar, tarakona.”

“Let’s hope Sundance has th’sense t’stick t’th’smaller things.” Wherever she was. Prowl experimentally pulled on an ohe stalk, attempting to tear it free from the ground. It resisted, flexing and bending somewhat, but resolutely staying put.

“Y’would know if she got in trouble,” Jazz said confidently, watching Prowl pushing and pulling on the stalk.

Maybe. Probably. She was her familiar, but that only made the idea of her getting in trouble more unpleasant. Pest that she was, Prowl loved Sundance and didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. “’M guessin’ there’s tools fer clearin’ this stuff,” she said, giving up on getting anywhere with her bare hands. “One’a these, maybe?” She patted the knives strapped to her legs beneath her sarong.

Silently Jazz drew one from her own leg. It wasn’t the largest of them, but it was the thickest, with a serrated edge along one side. “These,” she said, touching the toothed edge. “Could also use a long-knife,” Prowl winced at the idea of one of the fine Praxan-made swords Hightower blacksmiths sold so many of during the trade season being used to clear vegetation, “or an axe.”

Prowl looked out over the field again. No matter which tool was used, it would obviously take awhile. “Why not keep it all clear from one harvest t’th’next?”

Jazz’s expression clearly conveyed she thought that was a crazy idea. “Ain’t no one here,” she explained patiently, like she was stating the obvious. 

Prowl couldn’t really argue that, she supposed. Still, “Wouldn’t it make it easier fer th’next harvest if ya left some things set up?”

Jazz’s optic band blinked uncomprehendingly.

“Never mind,” Prowl said, waving the question away. Something about it just wasn’t translating; talking without communicating thanks to their vastly different experiences. But she was here in Polyhex now, to experience all the things. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Shouldn’t start clearin’ much ’til others git ’ere,” Jazz mused, stroking Prowl’s back encouragingly, “but if y’wanna pick yer camp spot we can git it set up fer ya when y’want.”

“Rather stay on th’kattumaram with ya right now,” Prowl said. If she was going to be expected to camp here while Jazz stayed with the boat, then they wouldn’t be able to sleep together once the Harvest properly began.

“’Kay,” Jazz chirped happily. 

From there the exploration continued without any real direction. Jazz followed Prowl as she wandered, putting names to whatever they encountered and occasionally explaining a specific use for some of them. Most of it didn’t make a lot of sense to Prowl, but she paid attention anyway, hoping that she’d be able to make connections soon with the proper context. Like how did the ohe help make fires? And while she could easily imagine wanting a fire for warmth, Polyhex seemed warm enough, so why was making fires important?

“Hungry?” Jazz asked as the sun started trekking across the afternoon sky, shadowed by the canopy of the forest. Prowl looked up and realized that it would “set” behind the mountain soon, dimming the sky long before it finally set beneath the sea.

“Am. No food-finding on th’island means goin’ out t’fish, yeah?”

“Yeah. Can leave th’kattumaram,” Jazz said reassuringly. “’M just gonna swim. ’Less y’wanna come with?”

She did want to come with, but she was also tired from all the walking and swimming they’d already done. Plus, she had another task she needed to spend some time on. “Gonna stay’n start  _ journaling,”  _ she said. 

Jazz’s nose wrinkled at her insistence on using the Praxan word. It was one that was part of Jazz’s mental glossary of Praxan vocabulary, but as far as she was concerned it, along with all other writing related words, translated into Polyhexian as “spell-crafting”. She knew that Prowl knew that, and so was perpetually confused that Prowl didn’t just  _ say _ “spell-crafting” when they were speaking Polyhexian. Prowl just set her mouth and waited for her to say anything about it. She’d go into the distinctions between types of “spell-crafting” again if Jazz wanted to, but so far no amount of repetition or rehashing on the subject had managed to convince her that there was a difference between magical and non-magical writing, and that to Prowl that difference was important.

“Don’t show any other priest-mages th’fishing cat spell y’made fer me,” was all Jazz said in the end, dodging the argument and changing the subject. 

“Won’t,” Prowl promised. The “spell” was really just Jazz’s signature, but while it had been necessary for signing documents in Praxus, Prowl had no business drawing the fishing cat in any form in Polyhex. Some spirit guides were very particular about who was allowed to create depictions of them, and the fishing cat was one such. “’S a Prax spell, an’ it stays in Praxus.”

Jazz nodded in satisfaction, and Prowl wondered why she’d thought it would be a problem. “’Kay. I’ll git us some food.” 

“Thanks.” Impulsively, Prowl leaned in for a quick kiss.

Jazz purred. She kissed Prowl back, turning a quick kiss into… something that wasn’t so quick. Prowl responded eagerly, frame warming with the touches and the memory of their aborted merge last night. She  _ wanted! _

Cooing happily, Jazz wrapped her arms around her to pet at her sensitive doors and trailed kisses along her jaw. “I,” kiss, “love ya,” kiss, “so,” kiss, “so much.”

“Love ya!” Prowl gasped, returning the favor by rubbing her fingers over the short protrusions on Jazz’s helm.

Jazz  _ keened. _

“Please.” Please something, anything, everything. “I want—” Prowl felt her spark all but pressing against her plating from the inside “—want ya!”

“Want ya…” Jazz gasped back. The world tilted, and Prowl found them on the ground, herself on top of her lover, her  _ mate, _ pressing their chests together. The seam felt oversensitive, the marks indicating they were bonded glowed in the tiny space between their plating. “Spirits’n gods… yes!”

Prowl echoed the sentiment — or maybe that was just her voice echoing in the trees. It wasn’t like they hadn’t merged at all on the journey here, but the demands of sailing had frequently left Jazz too busy or too tired to do more than cuddle. Now it felt almost like she was trying to make up for lost time, and Prowl was all for that. She trailed kisses down her love’s chest, and the armor cracked open beneath her lips, glowing paint giving way to the glow of Jazz’s spark.

“So beautiful!” Prowl leaned in that little bit closer to gently kiss the crystal chamber. Jazz cried out, pressing it to Prowl’s lips. She’d always loved the stars in the sky, but this star, burning so bright and full of life inside her beloved’s chest… this was the most beautiful of them all.

Prowl’s chest seam parted, adding to the light between them. Their sparks called to each other, the bond pulled them together, two halves trying to become, just for a moment, whole again.

Jazz pulled Prowl up with now-unsurprising strength, aligning their frames— “Prowl!”

_ Jazz!  _ Whether the cry had made it past her lips or not, Prowl knew her mate could feel it as she sank down into her arms, bringing them spark-to-spark. 

_ Love… _ There was so much  _ love  _ and  _ desire  _ and  _ rightness  _ about this. Surrounded by her love’s spark, Prowl could feel the depths of that  _ rightness _ reciprocated. And… and Jazz was so  _ proud _ of her, for coming here, to the wild islands where Jazz was so very much at home. Prowl could have sobbed. She wanted so much to see where her mate was from, to learn about this part of her, but had been afraid she would get it wrong somehow. A burden was the last thing she wanted to be; she wanted to make Jazz happy!

But down to the deepest parts of Jazz’s spark, there was a certainty that Prowl could never be a burden to her.

Best. Mate. Ever.

_ I love you! _

_ Love! _

Prowl had very little sense of her frame when they merged — sometimes she had none at all — but this time she thought she could feel Jazz’s hands on her back, holding her tenderly. This closeness… neither of them wanted it to end. But for all their sparks rejoiced to be one, they couldn’t stay that way. The combined energy was too much, spiraling higher and higher into bliss that refused to be contained. Overloading as it overflowed, Prowl’s consciousness was momentarily swept away by the light.

The song she woke to was, as many of Jazz’s songs were, wordless. An undulating sound of joy.

“Hi,” Prowl murmured softly, not moving. Their plating had partially closed, but their sparks were still reaching for each other. Muted glowing tendrils bridged the space between them where they lay curled up on the forest floor.

“Hi,” the word was incorporated into the final note as Jazz brought the song to an end. “Beautiful.”

“Yer beautiful.” Prowl smiled. “I’m so lucky.”

“Yup,” Jazz preened.

Prowl laughed. “So modest!” She reached over to tap Jazz’s nose playfully, and caught a glimpse of her own arm. “Primus, I’m a mess.”

“Yer fine,” Jazz assured,  _ completely unbothered _ by the mud and sand on her own plating. But then, Prowl had noted that Jazz, though not slovenly, rarely cleaned up without prompting, usually from her mate. “Yer beautiful, beautiful.”

Prowl’s field flushed happily. “Glad ya think so, but I still feel gritty.”

Jazz laughed. Then she flipped them over so Prowl ended up laying in the black dirt.

“Well now it’s just worse!” But Prowl was laughing too. “Yer so helpful.”

“Am!” Jazz crowed smugly.

“Wanna be more helpful’n go git somethin’ t’eat?”

The islander laughed again. “Will.” She kissed Prowl one more time — a quick kiss this time, for real — then levered herself up off the ground. She resettled the bundle of weapons on her back, harpoons and the Iaconi gladius she’d stolen from Arcee what felt like so long ago rattling as she arranged them so they wouldn’t shift while she ran. “Back soon.”

“’Kay.” Prowl watched her leave, then looked down at her plating. “Ugh. Maybe I can rinse some of it off?” The river wasn’t exactly clear, but brushing at the dried mud and odd black dirt wasn’t doing any good. All she managed to accomplish with her hands was to move the stuff around, leaving long, ashy streaks behind. Where had the ash even come from? Jazz said they used the ohe for fires, but with all this rain, any ash from last vorn should have washed out to sea long ago.

When Prowl returned to the river, she found Sundance curled up in a patch of sun, pointedly licking a paw. “You’re a mess.”

“I’m aware,” Prowl told her. “I  _ was  _ going to try washing it off, but maybe I should pet you first.”

“Noooo…” Sundance skittered away, scampering over to the kattumaram with a hiss.

“Relax. I wouldn’t really do that to you.” Prowl walked out into the water. The instant her feet hit the riverbed it stirred up the silty mud at the bottom. “Maybe in addition to magical claws I should try to find a way to make a magical shower!”

The cat snickered. “Or lick yourself clean, like a proper mechanism.”

“Not practical,” Prowl tossed back. “I’m not flexible enough to reach my doors.” Which was a problem in the river too, since Jazz had shoved her back into the dirt. She waded out further into the water so she could submerge and flick them to rinse off the worst of it. She watched the black sand whirl and drift away in the water, along with swirls of some sort of iridescent sheen on the surface. It felt good, getting the grit out of her joints and from her armor seams, but when she came up out of the water to see how she’d done, she saw streaks of dark, fine mud had settled on her armor instead of washing away completely.

“Still messy,” Sundance said helpfully.

Prowl sighed. It looked like this was one of those things she was just going to have to learn to live with, like Jazz did, even if she never learned to like it. “My joints aren’t grinding on themselves and my hands are clean enough to write. That’s going to have to be good enough until it rains again.”

“Just don’t let in the wet when you come to bed,” Sundance said, voice muffled as she sat down and started the meticulous process of ensuring her tail was immaculate.

Not bothering to respond to that, Prowl did her best to shake the water off her frame before climbing up to rummage in their supplies. She hadn’t been able to bring very many, what with the limited space, but stowed away where they would be safe from getting wet were the few blank journals she’d been able to fit. One already had a few notes in it from the very beginning of the trip, and she pulled that one out to continue recording her experiences and observations.

She started with the journey to the islands. She lingered on the details of overcast days and nights, frequent storms, and giant swells. Really, it was no wonder Praxus lost boats every vorn! Polyhexian raiders were blamed whenever a ship didn’t return, or returned wrecked, but some of those waves they’d skimmed up and over had been tall enough to swallow Hightower’s castle — and that was before getting anywhere near the Teeth.

In as much detail as she could remember, Prowl sketched the wreck they’d passed. She wished now they’d been able to get closer for a better look. How much of the damage was age and weather related deterioration rather than the direct result of running into the Teeth? She didn’t know, and left the question penned in beside the sketch in small, space-saving glyphs. 

After she finished, she forced herself to put the journal away. She didn’t have the pages to indulge in every single detail she wanted to record, and the cramped writing would make her hands hurt if she kept at it too long. Better to take a break before it got to that point and switch to something else.

Rebraiding kahawai strings, for instance. There were several that had been spread out all over while they were gone.

“Were you pouncing these?” she asked her familiar when she found marks on one of the ribbons that looked suspiciously like little kitty teeth marks rather than bird claws.

“No,” her familiar lied from where she was napping. Her tail flicked absently. “I was keeping it from running away. You’re welcome.”

“Mhmm. Well, in that case, thank you.” Prowl smiled at the “sleeping” cat. At least she’d been having fun, and the ribbons were still on the boat when she was done! 

She was still working on the kahawai as the sky began to darken. Prowl looked up, worried she’d lost track of time, but it wasn’t sunset. It was just the gathering of clouds that heralded more rain. 

Rain. She’d be able to finish cleaning up!

Sundance did not share her enthusiasm. “I thought this was supposed to be the  _ dry _ season,” she yowled, bolting for the blanket when the first droplets fell, wet and heavy and loud, on the crystal trees.

“Maybe the storm season isn’t quite over?” The harvest truce hadn’t started, but Prowl didn’t know how closely the weather followed the political seasons, and Jazz wasn’t here to ask. Standing so the rain could more easily wash the remaining dirt off her plating, Prowl looked down the river, wondering when she’d be back.

She didn’t see the mechanimal until she twisted to get rainwater into a particularly stubborn seam. She’d turned just far enough that it appeared in her peripheral vision, suddenly  _ right there, _ stalking around the edge of the meager clearing in the bakau. It froze when it noticed her watching it, lips curling upward into a snarl.

The size and sharpness of its teeth were not particularly reassuring.

Glad she was already on her feet, Prowl straightened and stood her ground. She was not prey. Not easy prey, anyway. Magic gathered at her fingertips, ready to fly if necessary.

The creature stared at her, vicious yellow optics narrowed. Then when Prowl didn’t do anything, it slunk around her, closer to the water, and watched her as it drank. Prowl watched back, then glanced along the shore to see if there were more of them. She didn’t know what it was, but it looked vaguely like a turbohound, and those ran in packs.

Sure enough, she saw optics — a deep purple — a nanoklik before a second creature slunk down to the river, then heard the snarls and cackling barks of several more.

“Surrounded,” Sundance whimpered from under the blanket.

Prowl swallowed hard. They were; pinned against the river by the things, and if the analogy of turbohounds held, they were better swimmers than either she or Sundance were. “If they try to climb onto the boat, I’ll attack them,” she said, much more calmly than she felt, as she edged toward the kattumaram. “You run up the mast and I’ll join you as soon as I can.” 

“Oka—  _ watch out!” _ the cat yowled, and Prowl whirled to see that while she’d been focusing on the two drinking from the river, another had come out of the woods behind her.

“Change of plan!” Prowl switched the single-target spell she’d been preparing to cast for something with an area of effect. She needed to distract them all long enough to get up off the ground. Reaching into her bag for the powdered mica she needed, Prowl released both it and the spell to create a dazzling cloud of golden particles. It flew out toward the creatures, coating everything in its path with blinding sparkles, but Prowl didn’t wait around to look at it. “Time to climb!”

It was amazing how much faster she got up the mast this time. 

Sundance was already perched at the very top as Prowl got her feet positioned in the grooves so she could free her hands. Three… four… _ five… _ Prowl counted as they revealed themselves. Two had run back into the forest in a blind panic, and a third had tripped and fallen in the sand, unable to see where it was going. The last two, unconcerned by the magical glitterdust, had climbed up on the catamaran’s deck; one glared balefully up a her, while the other sniffed at the packed piles of supplies.

Another chitter-bark from the forest told Prowl they might not be the only ones still out there.

“That’s a lot of things,” Sundance said with a low growl in their direction.

“As long as they stay down there,” Prowl said, readying another spell. It would be even better if they would all stay away from the kattumaram entirely, but now that she had some measure of safety (precarious as it was), she was going to do her best to drive them off!

Digging through her spell components for another handful of mica as a third creature emerged from the crystals, her fingers brushed a flimsy tube of sulfur. Snapdragon fireworks! Even better for driving off dangerous mechanimals (she hoped). She pulled it out and, with a quick word and a gesture, sent the first firework sizzling through the air toward the creature nosing about in their supplies. “Go away!”

**_Crack-boom!_ **

With a yelp of more surprise than pain, the creature, hound, whatever, leaped away from the brightly colored explosion.

Not brave, the others also skittered away from the flash-bang. Prowl quickly sent down another, hoping they would take the point and get lost. More yelps of surprise, and the one that hadn’t yet climbed up on the boat dashed away into the tree cover, leaving only one determined spark in the open.

Four fireworks left… One of them left her fingertips, heading right for the creature’s growling face.

It practically leaped away, dashing away and into the forest.

“And stay away,” Sundance hissed.

“I’d really like it if they would, yes.” The remaining fireworks would linger for a little while, or until she threw them. Prowl held on to them for the moment, in case the things tried to come back, and stroked her hand over Sundance’s agitated plating. “Are you okay?”

“Scary…” the cat whined, edging closer to Prowl. She bumped her head against her hand, then licked it. “And now I’m all wet.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” But there was nothing Prowl could do about it. Not without climbing back down, and she didn’t want to do that. She was staying up here until she was too tired to hold on or Jazz came back, whichever came first. If Jazz wasn’t back before the spell fizzled out and she didn’t need the last fireworks for defense, she could send them up as a signal. “Whatever they are, they’re definitely scary.”

There was no further sign of the turbohound-things, but she  _ hadn’t _ seen or heard anything before the one had been almost to the river. The rain blurred everything, making every flitter of wings and call from the trees sound threatening and sinister. Her glitterdust spell faded, leaving the creatures she’d hit with it able to camouflage themselves again if they returned, and eventually she had to send up the last of her fireworks before they simply vanished, uncast.

Her legs were starting to hurt.

“Prowl?” Jazz called out, appearing like a ghost at the edge of the trees.

“Jazz! Be careful, there’s some sort of—” Prowl broke off, realizing she’d mentally fallen back on Praxan at some point and the wrong words were coming out of her mouth, “there’s some kinda big things out there with lotsa teeth.”

“Yeah… Dubuk. Can see th’tracks. Ain’t here now.” She looked up at Prowl. “Y’drove ’em off?”

“Drove ’em away from th’kattumaram. Didn’t know if they were gonna stay gone.” Relief at hearing they had, and at not being alone, melted away the stress she hadn’t realized was all that was letting her cling to the mast. She slipped, limbs trembling as she struggled to retain at least a little control of her fall. Jazz’s arms wrapped around her at the bottom, helping her get her feet back under herself. 

“Coo-ruu… Y’did it right. They’re gone.”

“Thank Primus.” Prowl let herself cling for a moment, then smiled and turned to nuzzle the cat that had just landed on her shoulder. “Will they come back?”

“Not soon.” Jazz shrugged. “When they do, y’will flash-bang ’em again! Yer a powerful priest-mage.” 

“Do more’n flash-bang ’em if I have to,” Prowl said, not fully feeling the bravado, but she did take a measure of pride in having successfully defended herself and the boat. “They were so quiet. I turned around’n they were just  _ there.” _

“Ain’t easy t’hear,” Jazz acknowledged, petting Prowl comfortingly. Prowl settled and stopped shaking under the caresses, and even giggled when Sundance pushed her way under Jazz’s hand to steal some of the attention.

“She was petting me.”

“And now she’s petting me.”

Jazz laughed and scooped up Sundance, ignoring her meow of protest. “Bet yer both hungry. Glad I got us some extra, yeah?”

“Very,” Prowl said with a vigorous nod. Food sounded like a very good idea. “What’d ya get?”

Hefting a complaining shipcat under her arm, Jazz trotted back to where she’d left the loaded harpoon in a tree. She had to shoo away an interested bird, but brought back the fish relatively intact. Prowl recognized the pataka, a flat fish she especially enjoyed, but there were several others along the shaft of the weapon, including a small sharkticon! 

“Brightfish,” Jazz pointed to the three, almost glowingly bright yellow and purple, fish on the end of the harpoon. She looked more proud of them than the tiny sea monster, and Prowl had to admit they had her more curious.

“So colorful!” They’d probably been among all the strange new fish she’d caught a glimpse of last cycle as they’d sailed in. Now, able to get a closer look at one that wasn’t moving, Prowl reached for them first. “Can see why ya call ’em brightfish.”

Jazz grinned, twirled in the rain, then set Sundance on the edge of the kattumaram. “Here.” She yanked one of the brightfish from the harpoon and deftly clawed it open so that the cybercat could easily lick up the energon within. Then she pulled off another and enticingly held it out to Prowl.

She didn’t go straight for eating it, taking the time to turn it over and examine the patterning of its scales. The underbelly and sides were covered in bright yellow scales, while the purple — also really bright — started on the dorsal plating and blushed down the sides like someone had used a very light touch with an airbrush to paint it. It really was beautiful; and tasty, if Sundance’s reaction was anything to go by. Prowl didn’t have claws or fangs though, so she drew one of her short knives to make an incision to drink from.

It  _ was  _ tasty, different and yet similar to every other fish Jazz had brought her to eat before. It was very, very metallic, and salty, but there was also a crystalline aftertaste, rather than the more rubbery one from fish near Praxus. Interesting!

“’S good,” she said carefully around the fish so she wouldn’t spill any fuel. Jazz liked knowing she’d brought things that made her happy, and seeing Jazz happy made Prowl happy.

Predictably, Jazz preened. She chose the third brightfish for herself and, since she  _ did _ have fangs, bit directly into the creature’s plating to get the fuel flowing. Prowl watched her, admiring the contrast of the fish’s colors next to the bright blue of Jazz’s visor.

“Where’s good t’hunt fer these?” she asked when she’d finished with her brightfish.

Jazz’s visor lit up at her interest. “They swim in th’Teeth, near th’ _ kohuke _ shaped like,” she made a gesture that implied something spikey and shelf-like, “in big groups, an’ dart inta crevasses if they see anythin’ dangerous.”

_ Kohuke… _ Prowl pondered the word as Jazz held out the harpoon for her to choose a second fish to eat, either the pataka or the sharkticon. The translation she had for that word came from the trade argot, the mix of Polyhexian, Praxan, and a grab bag of other terms and mishmashed grammar used in Hightower to buy and sell things to Polyhexians during the trade season. There, and in the books she’d originally learned the basics of Polyhexian from, the word translated as  _ sea gems, _ but that didn’t seem to be how Jazz was using it.

“Means y’have ta be fast then, yeah?” Their colors would make them easy to see, but Prowl knew how quickly fish could move and change direction. Though at least she wouldn’t have had to worry about the brightfish attacking back; the sharkticon, on the other hand, already had a formidable number of very sharp teeth even at this size, and a hefty barb at the end of its tail. This was the second one Jazz had caught for her, and this time Prowl wanted to taste it.

It had thicker, rougher plating than the brightfish, and wasn’t particularly bright at all. Instead it was a dull, shiny red color with spots of silvery-white at the end of each fin. Knowing that even the plating could bite, with that rough texture being sharp if rubbed the wrong way, Prowl was careful making the incision in its belly.

The energon that welled out of the cut was a sluggish dark blue, and when she tasted it, she found it heavy and densely metallic.

“I want to taste it too,” Sundance said, pawing at the sharkticon.

“Mnn,” Prowl mumbled at her, moving it out of reach.

“You’re so mean,” the cybercat mewed plaintively. “I just want a  _ little _ taste!”

“Nn.”

“But I want to taste!” She leapt up onto Prowl’s shoulder and started trying to walk down her arm to get at it. Prowl’s attempts to dislodge her without letting go of the sharkticon slowed her down but couldn’t stop her. All she succeeded in doing was making Jazz laugh at her.

“A’aight,” she sighed, holding still so Sundance could have her taste.

“Mmm…” The greedy cat grabbed the thing’s largest fin with her teeth, and braced herself with her paws to rip it free, taking a rather large hunk of flesh and tubing with her when she jumped down to consume her prize.

Leaving Prowl covered in fish mechanisms.

“Uugh.” This time Prowl let go of the sharkticon enough to speak clearly. “I was finally clean! Did you  _ have  _ to do that?”

“Still raining,” the cat mewed between bites. “You can clean up again.”

Jazz was still laughing. 

“Menace,” Prowl huffed. “Both’a ya!”

Jazz scooted over next to Prowl and leaned against her. “Yer gonna be a menace too when y’let yerself.”

“Ain’t supposed ta.” Though since she was already a mess now, she wasn’t quite as delicate about continuing to eat. It wouldn’t do to waste it, but if a few drops escaped and got on her plating, who would notice? “’M supposed t’be focused.”

“On what?” Jazz asked, honestly curious.

“On learnin’ as much as I can.” That was the easy part, the one she hardly had to think about, but it wasn’t her only responsibility. “And on bein’ a good  _ diplomat.” _

Jazz wrinkled her nose. That was another word that was part of her Praxan vocabulary, thanks to the lengthy marriage contract negotiation, but she still didn’t really  _ understand _ it. “Don’t see what one has t’do with th’other. Fire don’t care ’bout th’stars.”

What was that supposed to mean? Idiomatic expressions were incredibly hard for Prowl to translate, because so many of them relied on cultural context she just didn’t have to make sense. She decided to try rewording her concern instead. “I’ve got a job t’do for th’ _ king.  _ It’s important I do it right, but it ain’t somethin’ I’ve done before. I don’t wanna mess it up.”

“Ain’t gonna mess up nothin’,” Jazz soothed.

“Hope not.” Prowl leaned against her mate. Jazz’s confidence in her was nice, even if she didn’t fully understand the situation. It wasn’t like Prowl did either. She just hoped she could learn fast enough to avoid making any mistakes she couldn’t recover from out of ignorance. Otherwise, returning to Praxus was going to be… She shook her head. There was a full cycle of seasons between then and now. “Thanks.”

“Y’ain’t gonna mess up,” Jazz insisted. “’S’why we’re ’ere fer th’harvest, so y’can learn with th’newlings. M’clan’s gonna love ya.”

“I’m lookin’ forward t’finally meeting ’em!” Prowl smiled. “Bet they think I’m weird, even if they like me.” Even those few who had liked Jazz during her trip to the capital for the marriage ceremony had thought her  _ very  _ weird. Prowl couldn’t imagine Jazz’s people would react to her any differently.

Jazz just shrugged. 

“You are weird,” Sundance meowed. “But that’s not a bad thing.”

“Weird for a Praxan Princess, definitely. If anyone back home saw me looking like this they’d be horrified!” She laughed, then relayed her thought to Jazz. “My clan’d be shocked by me sittin’ here covered in sharkticon.  _ Eatin’  _ it, no less! T’them ’s a sea monster.”

Jazz chuckled. She had more than enough experience with the horrified nobles in Praxus to know exactly what Prowl meant. “Keep tellin’ ya: ain’t a monster. ’S just a critter. Carcharhinidae’s kin, nothin’ unnatural at all.”

“Ain’t natural in Praxus. Not where mechs live, anyway,” because there were occasional sightings of them along the coastline, she’d found out. “They don’t get close t’Hightower or th’other ports, and everything else’s inland.”

Jazz shrugged again. “Some’a ’em like rivers, an’ even some that don’t, spawn in riverfish hot spots so that’s where they can be found when they’re little.” She flicked the tail barb of the drained sharkticon. “Usually smaller’n this, but th’melemele, th’… sun color?” she tried in Praxan.

_ “Yellow?”  _ Prowl said, somewhat distracted by the idea of sharkticons in the rivers! 

_ “Yellow,” _ Jazz repeated, then continued. “Th’melemele sharkticon spawn in th’rivers, then stay ’til they’re,” she held out her hands a little further than her shoulders. “They don’t come back once they leave, but th’zambi sharkticon spawn ’ere, then leave, then come back t’hunt.”

“They come back.” Meaning they could have been in the water when she’d fallen into it in the bakau grove. “How big d’they get?”

Jazz leaned forward to tap Prowl’s foot, then held her hand above her head.

“Eek!”

Strong arms wrapped around her to hold her comfortingly, but the evil femme was  _ laughing. _

“Well ’scuse me fer not wantin’ t’git chomped in half!” Prowl was tempted to shove her away for being such a brat, but she didn’t actually want her to let go. “Ain’t a lotta mechanimals that big on th’mainland.”

“Noticed that.” Jazz wrinkled her nose.

“An’ most of ’em don’t have big teeth t’match.” Zap ponies could get fairly large, but their teeth were blunt and their mouths were small. A bite from one of them would still hurt, but it wasn’t likely to be fatal. The only large, land-bound predator Prowl could think of was the turbowolf, which she was familiar with only by description… description that, now that she was thinking about it, matched the dubuk from earlier awfully well. “Oh, Primus, they were  _ wolves,  _ weren’t they?”

“Huh? Th’… stories?” Jazz asked hesitantly. “Couldn’t always follow…”

“Th’stories th’guards were tellin’, yeah. Th’mechanimal they were talkin’ ’bout sounds a lot like th’dubuk.” Which was an incredibly uncomfortable thought, because those stories were awfully scary. That was the whole point of them, of course, and maybe they’d been exaggerated a little for effect, but she had an actual, irrefutable reference point now for how big and how silent the mechanimals really were.

“Sure,” Jazz accepted that without concern. And why should she? She’d barely followed the flow of the conversation; she didn’t know the terrible deeds and occasional supernatural power that had been attributed to turbowolves in Praxus.

Prowl, meanwhile, was convinced she wasn’t going to be able to sleep again tonight. She was going to have to though. It was getting dark enough that she’d need a light spell to see very soon, and the rain had taken off the worst of the mess on her plating. 

In the distance, there was a rumble of thunder.

“Should eat yers,” she told Jazz, pointing at the pataka before holding up the sharkticon carcass. “What should I do with this?”

“We’ll feed ’em t’th’nijan.” Jazz finally bit into her fish, drinking the energon quickly. Prowl nodded and got up to haul in the crate.

“Would you like another fin?” she asked Sundance as she passed her.

The cat stood up on her hind legs and meowed in interest, tilting her ears in a way that Silverstreak claimed was “too cute to resist”.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Prowl brought the sharkticon around so she could reach it. She wasn’t much better than the prince at resisting that look. 

Sundance sank her teeth into the creature’s plating and tore off one of the pectoral fins, along with another piece of its body. “Mrrmrrrrmrrroow.”

“You’re welcome.”

When she reached the edge of the water, Prowl set down what was left of the sharkticon and grabbed the rope attached to the nijan crate. She kept pausing between pulls to check and make sure it was still there, then remembered Jazz’s habit of pinning things with her foot to “keep them from disappearing” (a phrase that was making a  _ lot _ more sense now that she was here!). Prowl resolutely placed her foot on the carcass. A kokako wouldn’t be able to get the whole thing off the ground on its own, but she didn’t know what other food thieves were out there.

As usual the nijan were not happy at all with being disturbed. Prowl still found them intimidating, with their large claws that she  _ knew _ hurt if she got caught by them. 

Chuckling, Jazz came over, tearing her pataka and what was left of the brightfish into pieces. “Y’gonna feed ’em this time, beautiful?”

“Am,” Prowl said, determined. She took the time to cast a light spell first though. The dark descended quickly with the combination of the rain and the shadows of the forest, and the best way to not get pinched was to be able to see what she was doing. Then she got to work cutting up the sharkticon with her knives by the glow emanating from the star-shell pendant on her necklace — the very first gift Jazz had given her.

“Perfect,” Jazz praised when she was done. They weren’t perfect, by any means. Prowl was still unpracticed with the knife, and the dark sand didn’t make for a supremely stable cutting surface, so the pieces were a little… uneven. But since Jazz had torn hers into rough bits that were far from perfect as well, she supposed this was something that didn’t require exactness. “Remember t’try an’ git ’em all or they’ll fight. An’ don’t feed each one too much, or they won’t eat it all, an’ we don’t want scraps floatin’ in th’water like bait.”

“Or a zambi sharkticon’ll swim up’n swallow th’whole thing?” Prowl said, trying not to think about it as she gathered up several pieces of fish. Now came the tricky part: moving quickly, she dropped a piece as close to in front of each of the creatures as she could. Four of them obligingly went for their own pieces, but a pair in the corner both decided to go for the same one. “Nope! No fightin’.” She snagged one by a small back leg and pulled it away, dropping a new piece for it while she let go and got out of the way.

_ Snap! _ The claws closed on the air where her hand had been.

Jazz just watched and smiled, radiating pride.

They had plenty of fish bits left over when she finished feeding the nijan. Prowl gave them all one last piece after they stopped going for the fuel quite so aggressively, then closed the cage so they couldn’t climb out. “Good?”

“Perfect!” Jazz swept her up into a twirl excitedly. Prowl laughed and held on. She loved the way Jazz could — and did — pick her up so easily. After a breathless spin, Jazz set her down, as she always did, like she was something precious, then planted a quick kiss on her lips. The two little dots Prowl kept painting on her love’s sensor horns in the wake-light paint glowed cheerfully. 

Prowl fanned her doorwings, where a set of matching dots were painted. “Help me throw th’crate back out?” She could pull it in, but lifting and throwing it far enough out that it submerged fully was still difficult for her.

“Sure.” Jazz kissed her again, and ran her fingers over Prowl’s plating as she let go. For her the crate was a quick toss back into the river. Then she dutifully collected up the fish scraps — Prowl supposed she’d use them tomorrow for fishing — and checked the ribbons.

Thunder rolled again in the distance.

“Gonna storm again tonight?” Prowl asked, unsure which way it was moving.

“Dunno,” Jazz answered without concern. “Haven’t seen th’flash yet, so it ain’t hittin’ Harvest Island right now.”

“Ah.” Well, maybe she’d manage to sleep a little bit. Maybe. 

“Wanna dig yerself a hollow under th’kattumaram?” Jazz asked, gently teasing.

“No!” Although, it would make her feel a little less exposed to the rain and the dubuk… But she wanted to be with Jazz more. “Just… sleep on top’a me again?”

“Will, but…” Jazz looked at her seriously, picking up Prowl’s hand and pulling her into a hug. “Y’sure? Ain’t a thing t’be ashamed of.”

“Ain’t? But—” Any protest she could think of had to do with Praxan propriety, so she didn’t voice them. “Guess I’m feelin’ like I shouldn’t let it bother me, but it does. Bein’ all out in th’open, I don’t feel safe.” She didn’t like admitting it because she didn’t want to imply she thought Jazz would deliberately put them in danger, but not feeling safe enough to sleep was the root of the problem. “Know if yer not worried I probly shouldn’t be either, but I am.”

Jazz kissed her chevron, squeezing. “’Kay.”

Then she let go and, before Prowl could blink, had wiggled under the kattumaram and was digging.

Prowl knew better than to try and stop her. “Need me t’pass ya anything?”

“Gonna need th’tarp’n blankets inna snap,” Jazz called back, voice muffled by the sand.

Did that mean she was digging a hole big enough for both of them? “’Kay.” Relieved, Prowl climbed up into the sleeping hull and grabbed them, then came around to where Jazz had crawled under the boat. “Got ’em.”

It was a little longer than a snap, but Jazz popped out long enough to give Prowl a kiss and drag the bedding underneath the kattumaram where she continued to fuss.

“’Kay,” she called, wiggling out a few kliks later. “Go make sure that’s good while I rinse off.”

Easier said than done with doorwings in the way, but Prowl was able to fold them down enough to just fit through the narrow gap to where the space widened out. The underside of the deck was close overhead, and Prowl bumped one of the kopapa boards where it had been lashed for storage, but once she was properly in the hollow it was fine. It was better than fine. Yes, the piled up sand Jazz had pushed away to make the hollow wasn’t much of a wall, but it blocked some sound, and the kattumaram felt solid and comforting around her instead of claustrophobic. 

“Prrl?” The soft sound was the only warning Prowl had before finding herself with an armful of warm cybercat. “Sleep here,” Sundance said, nuzzling her chest.

“Good?” Jazz asked, crouching down to peer into the space, lit bright by Prowl’s light spell.

“Good,” Prowl said, smiling. “Thanks.”

Jazz preened, then dropped fully to her hands and knees to crawl in to join her. The sand was damp, and some of it clung to her as she lowered herself into the hollow and wrapped her arms around Prowl. Which made Prowl realize she herself hadn’t managed to avoid picking up some sand on her way in either.

Worth it, she decided when she heard the thunder outside again. Feeling safe was worth a bit of sand, and Prowl snuggled up to Jazz without another thought for it. “Yer th’best.”

“Am,” Jazz bragged.

Prowl kissed her, then cancelled the light spell. 

The bedding wicked the moisture from their plating quickly, and then the insulated pocket of air beneath the blankets started heating up, despite the cool air from the river and the damp sand around them. Jazz fell into recharge almost instantly. Prowl actually managed to follow only a short time later, but—

_ What was that?! _

She jerked awake, still in the dark with Jazz sleeping soundly next to her. Sundance’s tail swished against her side, agitated.

“Wet,” she complained, even though they were dry under the tarp. The sound of the rain on the deck above them was a lot louder though, and Prowl realized the sound she’d heard was thunder, now much closer than before.

As if to make matters worse, a distant howling was answered by much closer chitter-barks. Dubuk. Nor, she realized, were they the only mechanimals very much awake despite the darkness and the storm. Low, mournful, repeating calls vied with high pitched squeaks that sounded like they were flitting around right above the kattumaram. Kokako? Kelawar? Something else?  _ Several  _ something elses?

“Go away, we’re not here,” Sundance meowed, tail still twitching restlessly.

“Shh.” They were hidden from sight down here, but the creatures might hear them if they started making noise. Prowl just hoped the rain had washed their scent trail away and that nothing would get curious enough to peek under the kattumaram. Nervous as she was, it would probably catch a reflexive spell right to the face. Then she’d  _ really  _ be embarrassed when it inevitably turned out to be a glitchmouse.

_ “Coo-ruu…” _ Jazz murmured sleepily, tucking Prowl’s head down against her chest and slinging an arm and leg more firmly over her. “’S’just bats’n birds’n th’wind…”

Right. Yes. Normal nighttime sounds that she just needed to get used to. Prowl did her best to focus on the (perfectly safe!) rhythmic drumming of the rain overhead and the soft idle of Jazz’s engine right beneath her audio. “It’s okay. I’m going to be okay. We’re going to be okay…” 

_ “Coo-ruu,” _ Jazz said again, and Prowl realized she’d lapsed back into Praxan. “Th’winds’re tellin’ th’rain gods how far they’ve come, carryin’ their clouds fer ’em t’catch in their nets. Th’west wind came from a place at th’edge’a th’world, where th’sea turns t’sand, glitterin’ like glass in the brightest sunlight any’a th’winds’ve ever seen…”

It helped. Between the rolling half-chant of Jazz’s words and the images the stories, songs, and poems she had to be drawing from conjured in her mind, Prowl began to relax. A storm as a group of participants on a journey together, and the thunder as a conversation while gods fished the rain from the clouds, was much less frightening than a blind, malevolent force throwing everything it had at them, even if part of her processor found the notion ridiculous. Ironically, engaging in the fantasy helped her rationalize the situation, and the result was a gradual lessening of her fear. They had shelter from the weather, and would have time to respond if anything tried to get in. They were safe.

.

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	2. Chapter 2

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.

.

Jazz was still very soundly asleep when Prowl woke to the sounds of rain and a trio of kokako squabbling over the kahawai. The forest beyond was just as loud as it had been in the night, but it didn’t sound as mysterious or frightening without the cover of darkness. There was a thin strip of light up where their hollow and the edge of the deck ended, and from the angle she was at Prowl could see one tiny, perfect pawprint in the sand.

Someone was already out hunting.

Unable to fall back asleep, but uninterested in moving just yet, Prowl stayed where she was and enjoyed her mate’s warmth. 

She wasn’t sure how much time passed. Jazz stayed in recharge, which made Prowl feel bad for waking her last night. How long had Jazz stayed up, relaying her ideas of what the winds would gossip about to the rain gods, so that Prowl could sleep? She was so good to her, so attentive and wonderful and loving.

Prowl had never dreamed of finding such a perfect mate. 

Perfect as Jazz was though, the longer Prowl lay awake, the more she began to notice the sand they’d brought in with them. Some of it had worked its way under her plating in the night, and once she felt it, there was no way to un-feel it. She tried to stay still, not wanting to disturb Jazz again, but eventually it was just too much and she had to get up and rinse it out.

Jazz petted her,  _ “Coo-ruu… _ ” when she stirred, and Prowl saw a dim light in her love’s visor… a light which flickered out with one last stroke as Jazz went back to sleep. Prowl smiled and made her escape, biting back a frustrated whine at all the  _ new  _ sand she was getting in her joints until she was out and able to shake some of it off. Ever so conveniently, it was raining just enough to make the stuff stick without actually washing it away, so she went to the edge of the river and started scooping up water to pour over herself.

It wasn’t perfect, since the water was brackish, but it got the sand off of her at least.

She was shaking the water from her doors for the third time in an effort to get the last of the grit out of the armor seams when she heard the very faint sound of a calling horn wafting over the water. There hadn’t been any this close to the island until now. Did that mean the others were beginning to come in, possibly even starting up the river? 

If they were, she should probably try to make sure they were presentable. One more futile round with the brackish river water was enough to convince her she wasn’t going to get any cleaner than she already was, so she gave up on that and turned her attention to the kahawai.

The ribbons had been spread out over the sand again, and several more were missing. One stubborn (or determined) kokako was busy untying and unwinding one particularly long strip of bright blue mylar from a tangle right in front of her. It stopped to stare at her, then cawed, as though proclaiming that it would not be chased away!

“Shoo!” Prowl walked toward it, pulling back her doors so that —  _ fwap!  _ — she could flare them out wide as she got close. With a squawk the big, glossy black bird took off, hovering for just a klik, then resettled on the string, flaring and flapping its wings for balance. It made a very mech-like laughing sound, then bent back to the task of freeing the blue ribbon from its knot.

“Why you—!” Prowl glared at it and, in a fit of pique, drew back her hand and threw a short-lived burst of magical light at it. With a screech, the kokako flapped its wings and backpedaled. It tumbled off the line before righting itself and flying off into the forest cawing out a warning, sans ribbon.

“Good riddance.” Even if they were allowed to steal them, she didn’t need the pests coming along behind her undoing her work while she was trying to get things tidied up! The birds had left enough of a mess already. 

Determined, Prowl started gathering up the ribbons and strips of cloth spread out over the clearing. She expected to find torn and ripped streamers, but mostly they were surprisingly undamaged. Just not where they were supposed to be. 

Was there some significance to how they were braided? Looking at the ones still properly tied to the strings, waving in the wind, Prowl noticed Jazz had used some very complicated knots. She replicated them meticulously, painstakingly restoring as many of the ribbons as she could. It was meditative work, and she found herself enjoying it despite the persistent drizzle making the strings slippery.

“Pretty…” Her familiar’s ears pricked in interest as she reappeared, wiggling out from under the boat. “Pounce?”

Prowl smiled and trailed one of the ribbons over the edge of the deck. With a happy growl, Sundance darted after the thing, claws scrabbling across the metal.

They played for a while. Prowl wondered if the noise would wake Jazz, but it didn’t. She must really be tired; she didn’t even come out when one of the calling horns sounded again just down the river!

“Do you think I should wake her up?” 

“I don’t know.” The cat’s tail lashed back and forth. “When does the truce start?”

“I don’t know,” Prowl echoed. Jazz had said “a couple of sunrises” when they arrived, but she hadn’t gotten the impression she’d been being precise. “This is Harvest Island though, and Jazz did say we wouldn’t have to worry about raids here.” She got up and looked out over the water, then walked over to the mast. All the climbing! This was the third time in two cycles. Ugh. But she wanted a better vantage point to see anyone approaching.

Annoyingly, the crystal trees still got in the way once she was up there. And not just the bakau; the ohe and the crystal jungle all but carpeting the island obscured her view beyond the nearest bend in the river. She could  _ hear _ the horn a little better, but… She had almost given up on seeing anything when she caught a flash of color through the bakau. One of the long banners some Polyhexian kattumaram had on top of their masts.

“They’re coming this way.”

“Yes.” Prowl reached over and ruffled Sundance’s ears, careful not to dislodge her from her new perch beside her. “I wonder if there’ll just be two of them, or if it’s a larger boat.”

“Don’t know. Go say hi?” the cat suggested. “Start the whole diplomancing thing?”

“Say hi? Just like that?” But that was so informal! Jazz wasn’t up to introduce her, and… and she was getting ahead of herself. Any organized diplomacy would have to wait until everyone arrived, which meant all she had to worry about right now was making a good impression. “Okay. You’ll come with me, right?”

“Will,” her familiar assured, bumping her head affectionately against Prowl’s hand. “Be right there.”

“Thank you. Help me with the snapdragon spell later?” Prowl asked, repositioning so she could slide back to the ground. She’d used up that particular magic last cycle, and needed to replace it in her repertoire. That and the glitterdust. “When we have time?”

“Of course!”

Assured that she wouldn’t be sans spell — this one or any other she used up if this did turn out to be a raid (Primus she hoped not!) — for long, Prowl went ahead and shimmied down the mast. She would have loved a mirror to check herself over in. She knew she still had streaks from the brackish water on her plating, but she did her best to straighten and properly arrange the hikure, layered sarong, and all of the jewelry she wore. Unlike Praxan ornaments, which were only worn during specific ceremonies or events, the Polyhexian adornments were meant to be lived in, and that inevitably led to them being pulled out of alignment while doing such things as climbing out from under a boat and up the mast! But mirrors, especially large ones, weren’t just rare in Polyhex, they were unknown. Jazz had reacted to her first glimpse of Prowl’s full-length mirror in her chambers in the capital with surprise, fright, and eventually a deep suspicion that hadn’t ever abated, no matter how many times Prowl demonstrated that it was harmless. 

“I’ll just make sure they’re busy looking at me,” Sundance meowed, leaping up to sit on Prowl’s shoulder where no one could miss her. “Then they won’t notice how messy you are.”

Prowl couldn’t help but snicker, slightly hysterically. Such helpful cat!

A new warble of sound came from the calling horn,  _ definitely _ closer, and she saw Jazz wiggling out from under the boat. “Mornin’,” Prowl called, trying not to sound too relieved at not having to face their company with only Sundance for backup. “Did ya get enough sleep?”

“Eh.” Jazz shrugged noncommittally. She tilted her head, listening to the song for a klik. “They’re from Small Mountain Island. Priest-mages, here fer th’harvest.” She shook the sand from her plating and ornaments. “Truce must’a started durin’ th’night.”

“That’s good.” Another measure of Prowl’s trepidation melted away. “I wanted t’thank ya, fer what ya did fer me last night.”

Jazz’s optic band blinked curiously. “Already did, beautiful. Brought me a food-gift. Was very sweet.”

“I did?”

“Did! It was very tasty!”

“I’m… glad?” Prowl said, still confused. What was she talking about?

Sundance purred proudly on her shoulder.

“Did you leave her something?”

“Did.” Sundance meowed, utterly pleased with herself. “Big tasty glitchmouse!”

“Tasty according to you.” And Jazz, who Prowl knew would have eaten the thing quite happily. There wasn’t much Jazz  _ wouldn’t  _ eat, when it came to it. Prowl wasn’t fond of glitchmice herself, especially when she rolled over and found them in her bed, but nothing Sundance had dragged in — and there’d been much worse than dead mice — flustered Jazz. “That was nice of you.”

“Was,” the cat agreed. 

Prowl felt Jazz’s arms around her, field buzzing happily. Before she could explain to her, though, that a dead glitchmouse was not an appropriate thank you gift, the boat they’d been waiting for glided into view. Jazz squeezed her, then let go. “Should help pull ’em up on th’beach.”

“Oh?” Offering assistance was acceptable? Expected, even? “Can do that.” She looked down at her plating and sighed. Jazz had gotten her covered in sand again.

Her mate jogged over to the — much bigger than theirs — kattumaram, splashing through the water and taking up her place to help push it up on the sand right as the occupants themselves jumped out. There were a couple of yelled greetings, but nothing that sounded hostile or surprised to Prowl. Taking that as encouragement, she went ahead and joined everyone in the water. Sundance, unsurprisingly, declined to help, leaping free before they got into the wet.

“I’ll just watch,” she meowed from the shore, licking a paw primly.

With twelve people pushing and shoving, the boat slid up onto the bank without difficulty, though they didn’t get as far up as Jazz’s smaller kattumaram before they started tying it off to the nearby crystal trees. A turbohound Prowl hadn’t noticed at first stepped down and shook itself, and she saw it wasn’t the only mechanimal aboard. Two birds, one with such long tail feathers it could only be a ketzal and the other larger with bright scarlet plumage, observed the proceedings from the top of the mast.

“Jazz?” A blue and white femme squinted at the warrior, tilting her head like she couldn’t quite believe her optic band. 

“Yep,” Jazz confirmed. She shrugged. “Gonna spend th’season here. Brought food fer th’newlings,” she tacked on quickly when the femme started to frown. “Here cuz m’mate wanted t’come learn with th’newlings.”

That sent the blue and white femme’s gaze in Prowl’s direction. “She’s a Prax!” She sounded… not quite  _ surprised, _ but like she was surprised to have something she hadn’t quite believed confirmed.

“Is,” Jazz teased.

Privately wondering what the femme might have heard about her, Prowl smiled and dipped her doors in greeting. “Hi. M’name’s Prowl.”

“Chromia.” The femme waved, blatantly looking Prowl up and down and even taking the time to examine Sundance, now twining her way around Prowl’s feet. She held her fingers out to the cat to sniff. “Yer a shipcat?”

“Am.” Prowl still found it a bit strange to refer to herself  _ as  _ a shipcat, but Jazz insisted she was, even though Sundance couldn’t possess her the way the fishing cat spirit did her. People just  _ were  _ the same mechanimal as their spirit guide in Polyhex, whether that guide took a physical form or not. “Her name’s Sundance.”

“M’pack haven’t given me their names, but I’m a dubuk. We’re,” Chromia stood and waved her hand to encompass those who’d come with her, “from Small Mountain Island.” She ended the motion by pulling Prowl into an embrace. “Y’choose a camp-spot yet?”

Prowl squeaked slightly at the unexpected hug. She’d forgotten that “excessive”, by Praxan standards, physical contact wasn’t just a Jazz thing. And it didn’t help that Chromia had just said she was a wolf! “Looked around a bit but haven’t picked a spot,” she said. Under the kattumaram didn’t count, even if it had been the only way she’d felt safe  _ from the wolves. _

“Can do that now,” Chromia offered. “Help ya pick a good one.”

Shaking off her nerves as best she could — spirit guides were different from regular mechanimals, and anyway Chromia said her pack (which, what?!) didn’t have names, which implied… it? they? didn’t have a physical form — Prowl belatedly returned the hug. “I’d appreciate that.”

Chromia beamed, showing off her sharp fangs.

Jazz’s soft touch on her doorwing made her look over. “Take yer axe,” she whispered. “Gonna need it with yer knives. I’m gonna go food-find.”

“’Kay.” 

Sundance snickered as Prowl disentangled herself from Chromia so she could retrieve the required axe. While they’d been talking, the larger boat’s kahawai had been put up. A few bright ribbons of mylar waved in the wind, but mostly it was heavier, duller bits and bobs that hung from the strings and clacked a multitude of discordant notes in the wind.

“I wonder why they made them like that?”

“Noisy,” Sundance mewed, eyeing the whole setup speculatively. “Still good for pouncing.”

“Stick to ours,” Prowl advised, not really expecting her to listen.  _ Cat.  _ “Ready,” she said to Chromia. 

“Here.” The other femme took the axe and tucked it into Prowl’s top sarong, against her back. “Y’carry it like that.” Then she took off, jogging to catch up with the others. Prowl paused before following, looking around for Jazz first. She’d already disappeared from sight. Not really surprised, Prowl set off for the ohe field.

Chromia showed her how to cut the poles down with both the axe and the serrated digging knife, then set her to work. Together they chopped and cut, stripped the plastic fronds off each metal pole — “We’ll dry ’em out an’ make rope outta ’em” — and sorted the poles into piles for building and for cutting open to get at the flammable carbon inside. During the process, Chromia introduced Prowl to the others. Cascade, with his hound Charcoal. Delirium was the one with the ketzal familiar, Brightness. Darkline had a cryosnake named Ribbons. Starviper had a tiny, little lizard-like familiar named Bloodmaw. Whistle… Comet… The names of mages and spirits flew past her. She hoped she’d be able to remember them all later! She hadn’t expected to have to remember the names of so  _ many _ familiars!

“So,” Chromia said when they’d finished going around the group. “Jazz’s mate.”

“Am.” Everyone was still working on the ohe, but Prowl noticed they were all managing to work close enough to eavesdrop. Bad as castle servants, the lot of them! Always after the best gossip. “An’ she’s mine. Took ’er fair’n square.”

“Heard she took ya…” Starviper said leadingly, not even bothering with the silent listening castle servants generally engaged in. 

“Did.” Prowl wasn’t sure how much of this line of questioning was testing and how much was just aggressive Polyhexian curiosity, but the answer was the same either way. “She took me first, then I took her.”

The ensuing, dizzying commentary in rapid-fire Polyhexian reminded Prowl of the cawing kokako in the mornings. 

“Y’can’t just leave it there,” Chromia finally said over the rest, slowly enough for Prowl to understand. “She took ya, then she was  _ missing _ fer a while, then y’took ’er…?”

“Don’t leave us in suspense!”

Prowl blinked, a little overwhelmed by their… enthusiasm. “About which part?”

“If y’wanted ’er,” Chromia said for the group, “why’d ya wait out th’moon an’ reject ’er?”

They didn’t know? Whatever news had made it back to the islands must not have been very detailed. Not that Prowl minded talking about it, even though the memory of how much it had hurt them both still stung. “Didn’t wait out th’moon. She let me go. Wasn’t what either of us wanted,” she added quickly before they could all start talking over her again, “but there’s things about bein’ Praxan that I thought meant we couldn’t be together, so she let me go. When I found out I was wrong, I went back for ’er.”

“Like what?” Darkline asked, at the same time Delirium scoffed, “Hazard, on Clawmoon, ’e’s got a Prax mate. Never heard’a any issues they were havin’.”

“Fuse ain’t a Prax!” Cascade refuted. “’E’s from Sharpcloud.”

“He’s got doors like,” Darkline held out his hands, waving them very much like Prowl’s doors moved.

“Don’t mean ’e’s  _ Prax. _ Remember little Talon, from last harvest? Claimed by Seaslash clan?”

The argument devolved into a series of rapid-fire questions about how Praxans were different than Polyhexians-with-doorwings, which — Polyhexians could  _ have doorwings?! _ In her attempts to answer and describe the city and citizens of Hightower, Prowl realized none of these mechs and femmes had ever actually  _ been _ to Hightower. They had heard “warriors” talk about the mainland, with its big caves and weird twisting streets, but had regarded those stories much like she did fairytales of dragons: things that might be true, but just as easily might not be.

They didn’t  _ doubt _ their warriors’ stories, precisely, but, “They’re  _ warriors,” _ Delirium said. “They exaggerate everything.” So yeah, sure, Praxans lived in caves, but did they really build hollow  _ mountains _ to live in?!?!

In amongst the questions and gossip, Prowl found herself answering questions about her and Jazz’s courtship. Her audience knew the barest struts of the story, but there were parts they’d missed, or heard and not believed as too fantastical, and she eventually wound up relaying the entire story piecemeal as the cycle wore on.

Meanwhile, the work continued. Prowl tired of the chopping and the hauling first. She just didn’t have the strength! But since the job obviously wasn’t done, she kept at it as best as she could, until Chromia pulled her away and toward the pile of ohe that needed to be broken into smaller pieces and the metal sheath peeled away so they could start a fire. That job, Prowl found, wasn’t any less difficult, but she could do it sitting so she didn’t complain. It was also sheltered from the rain; Starviper scooted up several crystal trees they weren’t cutting down to tie up a tarp in a slanted pavilion to keep the newly peeled carbon logs dry.

Sundance gratefully darted under the shelter as soon as it was set up, shaking the rain off her plating with an indignant sneeze. Prowl petted her as she settled beside her, then kept working.

“Wet,” came the familiar complaint.

“I know.” It really did feel like it was never going to stop raining, even though they’d had a clear spell the other cycle. “How long do th’storms last?” Prowl asked Whistle, who’d joined her husking stalks.

“They’re taperin’ off now,” he assured. “’S just rainin’ now. Ain’t had a  _ real _ storm fer a few sunrises. What d’ya say, Cascade? Gonna be dry in time fer th’first dirt crystal harvest t’go up?”

Cascade gave that all due consideration, contemplating the sky while his hound, Charcoal, came up and put his head under his mage’s hand. “Should,” he said, not looking back to them. “Sky’s clear’a monsters. Just wind’n rain.”

How did he know? Prowl looked up, but nothing stood out about the clouds to her. Was it a case of not knowing the trick of it, the way Jazz knew how far away a storm was by listening to the thunder? Or was it magic?

The question she actually asked first had nothing to do with the weather though. “What’re dirt crystals?”

Everyone looked at each other, like they weren’t sure how to answer that. “Git th’fire started an’ put a pot on,” Chromia suggested after a long beat of silence. “Can show ’er.”

“Ain’t dirt crystals!” Delirium protested, even as Comet and Darkline jogged back to their boat, presumably to get the requisite pot.

“So?” Starviper laughed. “S’time t’eat anyway.”

Food… actually sounded like a really good idea, now that she was thinking about it. Not everyone was going back to the boat, so Prowl stayed where she was, waiting and watching. 

Whistle dug out a shallow depression in the sand and packed the sides until they were hard. Prowl wondered why, until he stacked five of the shortened, husked ohe logs inside. He was building the fire there! Using a knife, he shaved off a few thin curls of the carbon from another log.

A quick spell, and the kindling caught fire.

“Go see if y’can find some large flat rocks,” he suggested while he coaxed it to catch in the larger logs as well. “An’ some smaller, heavy round ones.”

“’Kay.” Prowl got up, putting away her tools before heading out to where she thought she remembered seeing suitable rocks.

“Not moving,” Sundance meowed loudly from where she hadn’t moved from under the tarp. “Can’t help carry rocks.”

Prowl laughed. “Go ahead and stay then. At least one of us won’t be wet and covered in sand.”

Rocks… rocks… Prowl stepped into the areas they hadn’t cleared yet, pushing through the standing ohe. She wanted large flat rocks and smaller heavy ones for… a work surface, was her best guess. Jazz had used rocks to open the kelapa. 

She found one flattish rock and pried it up out of the ground. Heavy! There was no way she was carrying several of these,  _ and _ smaller ones, at the same time, so she headed back right away. It was surprising how small the cleared space really was. The area around the fire didn’t take up even a space the size of a Praxan house!

“Good,” Whistle praised, pointing to where he wanted the rock. A basket and a Praxan barrel had joined him at the fire. Chromia came back with a much larger rock, and Prowl stopped to watch them wedge it into the firepit before getting back to work gathering her own rocks.

Back and forth, back and forth. She was glad she’d had a chance to sit for awhile before doing this, and was definitely feeling the strain by the time Whistle was satisfied. It was a little frustrating; winded, after only five large rocks! She really hoped the work would get easier with time and practice. Already she’d come a long way from where she’d started and she knew it, but there was obviously plenty of room to continue improving. No one else looked tired at all.

A large pot had appeared at some point between trips. Now when she came over to look inside it, she found it filled with— “Water?”

Chromia snorted. “Cascade pulled it from the air.”

“Water gods’re makin’ th’spell easy,” Cascade said as he preened.

They were at that, Prowl thought as the rain continued to patter against her plating. But it wasn’t falling fast or heavy enough to have filled the whole pot already without the aid of magic, so the spell had obviously done its job. “But what’s it fer?” she asked, since that was really what she’d been curious about. “Why water?”

“Can gnaw on raw chuno if y’have ta,” Chromia said philosophically, “but it ain’t pleasant. Come on. Water’s startin’ t’git warm, an’ we gotta break up th’crystals t’add when it boils.”

Almost absently, she used a spell to dry Prowl’s plating as she came under the tarp, and patted the sand for Prowl to join her at her wide flat rock. Sundance’s head popped up from where she’d been “napping” to stare at her, eyes wide as saucers. “Want that spell.”

“Gotta add th’,” Comet flipped open the barrel and Prowl saw it was filled with a yellowish-red paste, which he scooped a generous handful of and plopped it into the water, “first. There.”

“What’s that?” Prowl asked, completely unfamiliar with it. Chuno at least she knew, in the powdered form they used to toast hexbugs, but this stuff was entirely new to her.

“Miso,” Chromia answered, but, unlike Jazz when introducing a new word, didn’t explain further. Instead she held her hand out to Whistle, who passed her five or six milky blue, lumpy oblong shapes. “An’ these’re chuno. S’made from dirt crystals. Here.” She put one down on the rock and demonstrated how to use the smaller, heavy rock to smash it with a dull  _ krrsht! _ sound into smaller pieces, which she added to the pot.

“Ohh, so we’re not powderin’ it all th’way?” 

“Not fer this.” She gave Prowl a handful of the smashed chuno. “They’ll dissolve inta th’water as it boils.”

Prowl nodded, already able to see some of the smaller pieces softening around the edges in the water as she added them. “An’ th’miso’s t’make it taste better?” Because chuno by itself was pretty bland.

“Mostly’s cuz it’s more fuel, but they do taste better t’gether.”

“Taste even better with fresh fuel,” Jazz’s voice offered, almost shyly, from just outside the tarp, weaving silently around the uncut ohe.

“Jazz!” Prowl looked up, smiling. “Y’caught somethin’?”

“Let’s see it,” Chromia said, and Jazz slung a cloth bag down from her shoulder to show off her catch.

“Mess’a kina,” she said, poking aside the twitching purple and black balls of spikes to reveal— “An’ found a pair’a kelapa, fallen in th’path.”

“Come on an’ add it t’th’pot, then.”

Smiling proudly, Jazz came over to Prowl and shook water from her plating before sitting. “’Lo, beautiful.” She kissed Prowl’s shoulder.

“Hi.” Prowl leaned into her mate, quiet pride of her own in her field. “Been learnin’ how ta clear’n strip th’ohe. Sundance’s been supervisin’.”

“Someone had to make sure you were doing it right,” the cybercat mewed primly. As if she’d had any better idea what to do! Prowl chuckled as she got up and padded softly over to Chromia. “How do you dry things without shaking water everywhere?”

Chromia held out her hand out for Sundance to sniff, then scritched at the cybercat’s audial flaps.

Snuggling up to Prowl, Jazz started cracking open the kina and scooping out the paste inside to add to the pot. Prowl hugged her, then reached for a rock so she could start helping with the chuno. The hard, brittle crystals didn’t have spines that could sting! Although, now that they were here, maybe she should start trying to acclimate herself to the kina. She knew it was possible; Jazz no longer felt any ill effects from accidentally brushing the wrong part of the critter, but she’d felt quite sick from the last sting she’d gotten. Hmm… maybe it would be better to wait a little longer, so she’d still be able to eat. 

Nearby, Sundance had started purring under Chromia’s fingers. She hadn’t gotten her answer, so now the noise ratcheted up, becoming demanding.

“You’re being rude,” Prowl chided.

“Wanna know the spell!”

“So do I, but you’re still being rude.”

“Cutie,” Chromia said, picking up Sundance and moving her to her lap. “Ain’t never met a cat who didn’t demand attention as ’er due.” 

Jazz shrugged, without shame.

The kelapa and kina were passed around the circle, and the others cracked them open, adding them to the pot along with the chuno. Whistle stirred the pot, and closed the basket of chuno so that only the crystals that had already been passed out would be added. Prowl stuck with crushing up the chuno, for the most part. There were only two kelapa, neither of which got passed to her. Part of her was sorry to see the sweet liquid poured directly into the pot with everything else, but there were twelve of them — more, counting the familiars. It was a good way to share it, even if it meant she didn’t get to enjoy one of her favorite island treats. There would be other kelapa.

“What’re ya gonna do with th’shells?” she asked when the last half-shell had been emptied of its interior seed crystal growth. 

“Does Prowl need a bowl?” one of them asked.

“No!” Jazz said grumpily. “I gave ’er a bowl.”

“Well go get it, kitty.”

Jazz stuck her tongue out at the priest-mage and wiggled away from Prowl so she could stand. 

“Jazz  _ did _ find ’em, though,” Chromia said with a sigh. “Th’shells belong t’er an’ ’er mate.”

“Don’t need ’em fer bowls. Was just curious what happened with ’em in a group like this.” Apparently whoever found them got first dibs on them. “Don’t know what else they’re good fer, other than bowls’n jewelry.”

“’S’bout it.”

“Can make kahawai.”

“Kass kass, kalimba…” 

“What’re those? How d’ya make ’em?”

Whistle laughed. “So many questions!”

“Course she’s askin’ questions,” Chromia said. “Came here t’learn, didn’t she?”

Prowl felt her EM field blush. 

“Well  _ I _ want to know that spell!” Sundance pawed at Chromia’s hand, which only prompted her to scritch under her chin again. 

“Kass kass’n kalimba’re fer makin music,” Delirium explained as Jazz returned with the two bowls, along with the bundle of blankets and tarps from Prowl’s things.

“Talkin’ ’bout makin’ music now?” she asked, setting everything on the ground before folding herself back down next to Prowl.

“Uses fer kelapa shells,” Prowl said. 

“Can definitely use ’em t’make music.” She made a grabby gesture toward the four cleaned kelapa shell halves, grinning when Whistle tossed her one. She braced it between her feet and tapped the smooth inside of the shell.

_ Tunggg! _

“Lemme see another.” Chromia evicted Sundance — who yowled in protest — from her lap and mirrored Jazz’s position, tapping a second one.  _ Tang! _ “Nice.”

Delirium snagged the other two and tossed one to Prowl before testing his.  _ Tangg!  _ Just a pitch off Chromia’s. “Not bad.”

_ Tnk! _

Prowl frowned at the sound hers made. It didn’t echo like theirs did, and she suspected she was either holding or hitting it wrong.  _ Tnk! Tnnk. _

The others didn’t comment on her inability. They simply continued to tap their own, settling into an improvised song of three notes that, nevertheless, increased in complexity while Whistle served the… the… Prowl didn’t even know what to call the bizarre mix of fuels… fuel into the bowls and passed them around, including bowls for those familiars who seemed interested in it. Ribbons the cryosnake disdained eating from a bowl and slithered off to hunt, while Bloodmaw the tiny lizard lapped from from his mage’s bowl.

Starviper took the bowl meant for Sundance and placed it at his feet, wiggling his fingers to call the cat over.

“Do  _ you  _ know the spell?” she meowed, abandoning her incessant circling of Chromia to trot over and sniff his fingers. “Someone has to be able to explain how to un-wet things!”

Prowl giggled, pausing in her efforts to get a good sound out of her kelapa shell long enough to take her bowl and have a quick, curious sip. The strange medley was just that: strange, both in taste and in texture. The sweetness of the kelapa was definitely there, but so was the saltiness of the kina. Add in a flavor of salt-brine-something she suspected was the miso, and the whole thing felt like a dish that couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be savory or sweet in addition to not knowing whether it wanted to be a paste or a liquid. 

“Y’look like yer tryin’ t’decide if yer gonna make a face at it,” Jazz teased quietly in between beats of the music. 

“Not gonna make a face at it,” Prowl said, meaning it. If pressed, she’d probably describe it as interesting rather than good, but she wasn’t going to quibble now. It was edible, and she was hungry. “’M gonna eat it, an’ I’m gonna figure out this shell.”

“Will,” Jazz encouraged, taking a sip of her own fuel before digging into the bowl with her fingers to pull out a chunk of what had to be chuno and crunching into it.

Oh. That was how she was supposed to eat it? Prowl glanced around the group and saw that nope, no one had any sort of utensils out to help them with the stuff. None of the fuel they’d eaten on the boat had required more than a knife to eat, but that was different. On the kattumaram, there hadn’t been anyone to see her make a mess of herself besides Jazz, and Jazz didn’t judge. If anything, Jazz  _ liked  _ when Prowl spilled things so she had an excuse to “help her clean up”, which Prowl definitely didn’t want to encourage with an audience!

Maybe she could just drink most of it and scoop up the larger bits when there was less to make a mess with.

Jazz licked her fingers and reached over to  _ tengg! _ Prowl’s improvised instrument. 

Other interruptions in the song developed as the other musicians ate, but instead of treating them like flaws, the others adapted and continued, letting the song rise and fall with the interruptions. Prowl was glad of that when she returned to her kelapa shell, because it meant her fumblings didn’t ruin what the others were doing. She was pretty sure she was holding it right, after studying everyone else, but no matter how she struck it — on the top, against the sides, with one finger or several — it just didn’t ring. 

During a pause to surreptitiously scoop bits of chuno and kelapa crystal from her bowl into her mouth, Prowl focused on the way the others were hitting their instruments. It looked like they were just tapping them, lightly flicking their fingertips against the shells, but her quick taps sounded like dull  _ thunks  _ compared to the lighter tones everyone else was achieving… with their claws, she finally put together. The Polyhexians all had claws, and she only had blunt fingertips.

Blunt fingertips with  _ edges.  _

Eager to see if it would make a difference, Prowl hurriedly licked her fingers and set the bowl of fuel aside and tried again.  _ Tonng! _

“Sounds good!” Jazz praised along with the others.

“I got it!” Prowl beamed.  _ Tonng, tnk, tonng!  _ “Well, mostly got it.”

“Takes practice,” Chromia acknowledged, licking her fingers clean from her latest dip before serving more from the pot by dipping the bowl directly into the liquid-paste. She wiped down the side of the bowl as she drew it up with her fingers, knocking the extra back into the pot and licking up the mess.

The sound of a calling horn from the river interrupted and they all perked up, looking that direction. Bowls and kelapa shells were set aside and fingers licked clean while the mechs and femmes stood up to help bring in the boat. 

Prowl went with them, though having everyone there proved to be a bit much. The new arrivals, another five islanders, had a smaller kattumaram that was fairly easily push-pulled up onto the bank. There was a whirlwind round of introductions that would have turned into another deluge of questions for her and Jazz if Chromia hadn’t stepped in with a firm, “Save it fer th’campfire.” Prowl was impressed by the speed with which the kahawai — more mylar streamers, this time — went up and the necessary cargo came off before everyone was on their way back to the camp. It felt a bit like being herded!

Another tarp went up to shelter the newcomers from the rain. More water was added to the pot with another unfamiliar spell. They added the fuel from some fish, then served. Jazz slunk in and added a handful of hexbugs to the pot, but Prowl lost sight of her quickly in the ongoing bustle.

Her head was spinning by the time everyone finished introducing themselves and their familiars and exchanged hugs. She looked around for her own familiar and found her lounging by the fire with Bloodmaw clinging to the top of her head.

Chromia pushed Prowl’s bowl back into her hands with a second helping. “Eat up an’ we’ll get ya a good sleepin’ hollow dug, yeah?”

“Sounds good t’me,” Prowl agreed, determined to be alright sleeping here instead of on the kattumaram with Jazz. She wouldn’t be alone with the others here now, and it was obviously what everyone expected of her — Jazz included, since she’d brought her stuff up. 

First, though, Chromia showed Prowl how to clean and rinse her bowl with sand so any remaining fuel wouldn’t attract pests. “Unless yer thinkin’ y’want hoppers fer yer next meal, then by all means, leave it dirty.”

“Sundance’d probably enjoy that,” Prowl snickered, fastidiously scrubbing out the bowl so no such thing would happen. Hoppers might make her familiar happy, but they weren’t her favorite thing. She’d eat them, toasted, but Jazz had made it clear more than once that Polyhexians didn’t usually toast hexbugs unless they were preserving them. 

Setting out the bowls in the rain, Prowl followed Chromia away from the fire, staying just inside the area they’d cleared of ohe. “Look here,” she waved her over to a large cluster of crystals with tall, flat fronds. “’S’good spot. Bit drier.”

Dry was good. Close to the others was also important. They weren’t too far away from the fire here, which was a comfort. “These won’t fall, will they?” Prowl looked up at the fronds, unable to tell whether they were healthy and sturdy beyond the fact that they were still standing after the last few nights of heavy wind and rain.

“Almost never,” Chromia absently answered, starting to dig out the damp sand to make the shallow, shaped depression Prowl would be recharging in.

That… would have to do, Prowl supposed. She knelt down to help with the digging, blunt fingers and all. She did know the depth and size of the hole they were trying to make, which was useful. She even knew how to account for her doorwings in the shape of the hole, something Chromia floundered with.

They lined the hollow with the tarp from her supplies and turned the blankets into a nest, then Chromia showed her how to tie her own, lower, smaller pavilion with her remaining tarp to keep the rain off. The opening wound up facing the side of the currently cleared space, giving her a “view” of the standing ohe. Prowl thought she might have preferred to be facing the fire, but it would hardly matter once she was asleep.

Once again, her skill with knots came in handy. “Yer good at those,” Chromia said, having started to explain the necessary ties only for Prowl to finish them while she was still talking through the first few steps.

“Thanks,” Prowl said, pleased to have made a good showing. “I practiced a lot in th’time before taking Jazz.”

“’S’a good skill. Helped keepin’ ’er from wigglin’ away, I bet.” Chromia scooted closer. “Could make this big enough fer two…”

Big enough for two? “But Jazz’s stayin’ with th’kattumaram.”

“She’ll visit, an’ I wouldn’t mind sharin’.” Chromia’s hand settled lightly on Prowl’s leg, letting her feel the other femme’s faint arousal.

Prowl couldn’t help it. She squeaked in surprise and jerked back, doors going up in shock before dropping sharply in embarrassment. She hadn’t misunderstood, had she? 

Chromia moved in closer, unperturbed by her reaction. Her claws traced lightly at the nearest armor seam in Prowl’s thigh as she watched her, clearly waiting for her response.

Nope! Hadn’t misunderstood. That was a proposition; the first real proposition Prowl had ever received from anyone, apart from Jazz. She was a princess! She was  _ bonded!  _ No one in Praxus would have dared! But Chromia wasn’t being impertinent, she reminded herself. Which meant… it meant that she was genuinely interested, didn’t it? But Prowl wasn’t. 

“No, thanks,” Prowl said carefully, unsure what constituted a polite refusal in Polyhex. She didn’t want to give offense, but she really didn’t want to interface with Chromia. Jazz always accepted a simple “no” when she wasn’t in the mood, so maybe… 

“Sure thing, gorgeous.” Chromia drew Prowl in for a quick hug. “Lemme know if y’change yer mind.” She scooted back. “Help m’build mine? Yer really good with those knots.”

That she could do, and gladly. Prowl nodded, smiling. “Sure thing.”

Chromia chose a spot under the same crystal cluster a short distance away. Building hers went even smoother than building Prowl’s had, even though Prowl jumped slightly when two of the newcomers started chopping ohe right beside them without warning, expanding the clearing. Looking up, she saw a third tarp had gone up, and a second fire had been started, complete with a shiny copper pot and surrounded by flat rocks.

“How big does th’camp get when everyone’s here?” Prowl asked, wondering what the ongoing improvements would look like.

Chromia shrugged. “Dunno. Not everyone’ll bother t’clear their sleepin’ hollow’a ohe first. An’ newlings’ll just recharge wherever.”

“And when does that happen? Th’harvest itself, I mean. Jazz said th’truce started last night, but not when th’harvest starts.”

She shrugged again. “When everyone’s here.”

Well then. That worked. It made setting expectations difficult, but Jazz had never been good at set times or fixed schedules for anything. Prowl had suspected a cultural component to her apparent lack of ability to plan or be punctual, and now she was getting evidence to support her hypothesis. 

She was reminded of the confusion when she’d tried to explain the concept of “being late” to Jazz, actually. Chromia probably wouldn’t understand it any better than Jazz had, if things just didn’t start until people arrived without stigma or consequence.

“Done,” Chromia announced as they staked the final corner of her tarp into the sand to keep the rain off. A few other low pavilions had sprouted, while others hadn’t bothered with more than pulling the tarp over their hollows like Jazz did on the kattumaram. And Prowl noticed at least one taller lean-to made from a tarp draped over a rope strung between two crystals. She was drawn away from her observations by Chromia taking her hand, lifting it up to kiss her fingertips. “Lemme know if y’git cold, alright? We’ll warm ya right up.”

“Ah… ’kay,” Prowl said, this time managing not to squeak. She  _ reeeally  _ wanted to ask Jazz about all this flirting, but she didn’t know where she’d gone. Back to the boat? Out hunting? How would she ever find her? The questions would keep, she decided; finding Sundance and finally doing something about her spells was more than a want, it was a necessity.

As though summoned, Prowl saw the cat dart into their own sleeping hollow to get away from the wet. 

“Prowl!” she yowled loudly enough that several mechs and femmes looked over. “Come here!”

Prowl giggled. “Think she wants somethin’,” she said. That demand was excited, not alarmed, but if she didn’t respond Sundance would just keep yowling. “Better find out what.”

“Prroooooowl!”

“Go see what she wants then,” Chromia laughed, shooing her toward the other side of the crystal cluster.

“Prowl!” Sundance meowed when Prowl looked into the sleeping hollow. “Bloodmaw,” her ears flicked to the tiny lizard now clinging to the underside of the tarp, “knows how to do the not-wet spell! And it gets rid of  _ sand too!” _ She danced on her paws excitedly, tail lashing back and forth. “He taught it to me. You  _ have _ to try it!”

“It gets rid of  _ sand?!”  _ Now Prowl was excited. The hollow wasn’t really large enough for her to do anything other than sleep in, even with the slightly higher headroom having the raised tarp provided, so she sat down in front of it. What did it matter she was out in the rain and the sand now, if she could magic it away once she crawled in? “How does it work?”

Sundance scampered over and sat in front of her, tail still lashing enthusiastically. She looked up to the lizard on the tarp; Bloodmaw just licked his own optic sedately. “Okay,” the cat said, settling in to talk about spell casting, and Prowl leaned in eagerly to listen. “As far as I can tell, it’s like prestidigitation, only…”

It was very different from what she used to do, working out the details of a new spell like this. There were no tomes to reference, no pages of notes scattered across a desk as a testament to her efforts; just Sundance, who was able to keep track of the complexities and nuances of the magic that Prowl had to continually refresh in order to cast her spells. She’d gotten to the point with her existing repertoire that she didn’t need to write things down anymore, but something she’d never done before… It was a struggle, and eventually she resorted to breaking off a piece of the nearby ohe so she could draw diagrams in the wet sand. They wouldn’t last — were, in fact, slowly eroding under the rain as soon as she drew them — but they were enough to help her wrap her processor around the concepts.

As it turned out, it really was more of a reimagining of the prestidigitation spell she already knew rather than something entirely new. Still not easy to pick apart the workings of, but on the plus side, it was the sort of magic that didn’t wipe the memory of itself from her mind when she cast it. She’d be able to use it all she wanted without needing to study with Sundance each time she cast it, which was a relief. Otherwise she’d have had Sundance pestering her constantly to study just so she could dry her off!

Once she got it down, Sundance contained her giddiness long enough to remind Prowl how to cast the glitterdust and snapdragon fireworks spells she’d used up driving off the dubuk.

“Now dry me off!” the cat meowed.

“Of course.” Prowl obligingly cast the spell, smiling at the  _ very  _ happy purr that heralded her success. Almost giddy herself, she slid into the sleeping hollow and proceeded to get rid of all the wet and sand on herself and on her blankets.

The gecko, she was half convinced, was laughing at her while he watched.

“Thanks fer yer help,” Prowl said to him anyway, since he’d been the one to explain things to Sundance. 

With another off-center lick to the side of his head, he scurried off.

Prowl settled into the sleeping hollow. It was very rapidly getting dark now, but the sounds of activity — chopping, hauling, calling and chattering — weren’t abating. A cheer even went up when a new boat came ashore, and the sound of the rain changed again when another pavilion went up around the cooking fires. Chimes and clacks started up in time with the evening wind when a string of the windchime kahawai went up somewhere close. It was very noisy.

She vaguely wished she had her journal with her, instead of it being back at the boat with what little Jazz hadn’t brought of her things. It wouldn’t be practical. She’d need to cast a light spell to see the words, and it was hard to sit up properly in a hole in the ground, however comfortable it was to lay in. But… so much had  _ happened. _

“Won’t forget between now and tomorrow,” Sundance said, gently kneading the folds of the sarong under her feet. She was very happily curled up on Prowl’s hip, making it impossible to get up without disturbing her. “Shouldn’t journal when it’s wet.”

“I could dry the pages now,” Prowl pointed out, but Sundance would not be moved.

“Ink would still run. Journal tomorrow.”

But… Polyhexians had  _ doorwings. _ And Chromia had come onto her. And kahawai could be made from kelapa shells, not just streamers. And dirt crystals (whatever those were) were made into chuno (somehow) and then mixed with water and other things to make a sweet-salty-savory fuel she still wasn’t sure she liked. And the other priest-mages’ spirit animals were  _ like Sundance _ and remembered their spells for them, and they could  _ teach each other _ new spells…

Sundance let out a low growl. “Thinking too loud.”

“There’s a lot to think about!”

“Then think somewhere else.”

_ “You  _ could always go somewhere else.”

“No.” Prowl felt as much as heard Sundance’s quiet huff. “Not going out in the wet.”

It wasn’t like she didn’t want to quiet her thoughts and recharge. She just wanted to make sure she remembered everything for when she could write it all down. She had learned so many important things about Polyhex already; shocking things, interesting political things, things any future diplomat to Polyhex would find essential background information about the country. Recording her initial impressions and assumptions would help smooth the way for those who would, hopefully, one cycle, follow in her footsteps.

Organizing her thoughts would be a lot easier if the camp would quiet, but no. The bustle of the growing temporary settlement continued unabated even after the last hint of sunlight was little more than a memory. Polyhexians could see almost as well in the dark as in the day, so perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised there were people still up, chopping and trimming ohe, digging their shelters or food-finding, but she hadn’t made the connection until now. 

And there was talking.  _ All  _ the talking.

Prowl could hear the crackle-pop of the fires, and the smell of the smoke was starting to hang heavily over the camp. Someone nearby started singing, and others soon took up the song. She heard a couple of mechs moaning in what she thought might be pain, until she actually shifted to crawl out and go help and heard even more clearly a simultaneous gasp and cry of passion…

She reversed direction quickly and ducked back down in her hollow. That wasn’t something she wanted to interrupt! It was embarrassing enough to listen to! And there was no way  _ not  _ to listen, now that they were really getting into it. Whoever they were, they’d dug their hollow awfully close to hers.

She ended up focusing on the rhythmic  _ clack-clackity-clack _ of the nearest string of kahawai, which sounded a bit like they were made from kelapa shell, but there was at least one set of chimes that made a higher, brighter sound. Glass? Each chime from the deep  _ tong-tong-tong _ all the way up to the highest  _ ting!-tinkity! _ sounded like fine, Praxan bells. They sounded good individually, though strung together on a single line they created a soft, persistent cacophony.

“Noisy.”

“I’ll take it,” Prowl said, using the effort required to separate out the individual chimes almost as a meditation exercise. They didn’t drown out all the people-sounds, but they made them feel a little less oppressive. “It’s better than worrying about wolves.”

“Is it?”

“…” She wanted it to be, but she genuinely wasn’t sure how she was going to fall asleep. Especially when still  _ more  _ voices joined the conversation and songs around the fires; Primus, even the boats weren’t going to stop for the night?

_ Clack. Clack. Clack. _ Prowl picked a chime that seemed to be making a regular sound and listened to it, doing her best to drown out the sounds of the camp. Since her processor kept trying to wander, she started to count them.  _ Clack. _ One…  _ Clack. _ Two…  _ Clack. _ Three…

“—Jazz’s here? Really?”

“Is! ’S cuz she brought ’er mate with ’er.”

“So? What’s that got t’do with anything?”

“How’ve ya not heard? Prowl’s a Prax!”

“Heard it! Didn’t believe it, but I heard—”

“Eavesdropping isn’t polite,” Sundance mewed softly, moving up from Prowl’s hip to the crook between her head and shoulder. She curled up in a ball, partially blocking Prowl’s audio with her body and filling the rest of the space with her purring.

Purring and chiming. Purring and chiming. Yes, they were talking about her, but Sundance was right. She didn’t need to listen. The newest arrivals were just getting caught up on the same gossip she’d been a part of earlier. “Thank you.”

_ Prrr. _

_ Clack. _

Prowl started counting again.

.

.

.

No one came to wake her up the next morning. The noise of the camp hadn’t abated, but somehow she’d managed to tune it out enough not to be jolted by it, and with her head buried under blankets and cat, the light level didn’t rise enough to wake her. It was warmer though, which, Prowl realized when she drifted from a restless sleep into restless not-sleep, was due to the sun hitting the tarp directly overhead. 

The rain had stopped again.

“Good weather for journaling,” Sundance meowed, leaping off her mage’s shoulder out into the sun. “See? Waiting to do it was a good idea.”

“Oh, was it?” 

“Of course. All my ideas are good ones.”

Prowl rolled her optics and reached up to pet the cat affectionately. “Of course,” she said, then carefully pulled the blankets back and crawled out after her.

The camp was… colorful. Tarps of all hues had been strung up between larger crystals, expanding the central pavilion to five fires and seven or eight sheltering tarps, and another central hub of fires had been started at the edge of the current cleared area as well. Stacks of husked ohe were piled next to a riot of mismatched baskets and barrels. There were too many sleeping hollows for Prowl to easily count, each adorned with their own brightly colored and patterned blankets and tarps. Kahawai — ribbons and chimes both — seemed to have been hung everywhere; a kokako glared down from its high perch, planning its attack on a long, bright ribbon of pink mylar.

And there were people everywhere.

“Hey! Prowl!”

Practically every head in earshot turned to look as Starviper hailed her. Prowl put on her best public face, smiling at as many people as possible as she turned and waved back to Starviper. “Mornin’. Looks like it was a busy night. I hardly recognize th’place!”

“Th’far- an’ fore-seers said it’d be a good harvest.” Starviper stroked down his arm, where Bloodmaw was currently perched. “Everyone’s turnin’ out t’impress.” 

“’S’an impressive start,” Prowl said, knowing that “making a good showing” was part of what determined how many newlings each clan could claim. She had no idea what that would look like, but she knew it was important. 

“Anyone yer impressed with  _ specifically?” _ he purred.

“Anyone I’m…? Oh!” Prowl’s doors went back before she could stop them. What was  _ with  _ everyone?! “Jazz impresses me,” she said, hoping Starviper wasn’t close enough to feel the hot embarrassment in her field. “Every sunrise.”

“She’s a lucky femme,” Starviper conceded, giving Prowl a hug. “Yer adorable.”

Adorable? She hoped that was a good thing. It sounded like a compliment, but she needed people to be able to take her seriously. “Thanks,” she managed to say, somewhat awkwardly. She really needed to talk to Jazz.

“Don’t be shy,” he advised, squeezing her again before letting go.

Right. Coming across as shy would definitely work against her. It wasn’t her intention, but if her uncertainty was coming across that way, she needed to work on it. “Thanks,” she said again more confidently. “And thanks again t’Bloodmaw, fer ’is help last night.”

“’E’s fantastic, ain’t ’e?” Starviper preened, while the gecko in question licked his own optic.

“Is.” Jazz had told her that some spirit guides were small, but it was still amazing to actually see. Adorable, even.

“Y’eaten yet?”

“No. Only just got up.”

“Should. Group’a us’re goin’ food-findin’.” He patted Prowl’s arm as he passed. “Come, if y’want.”

Part of her wanted to take him up on the invitation, but, “Got  _ journaling  _ t’do while we’ve got th’sun,” she said. That, and talking to Jazz. “Lemme know next time yer goin’ so I can join ya.”

“Will!” He waved and jogged off.

On her own again, for the moment, Prowl turned and headed the other direction. Hopefully when she reached the river, Jazz would be with the kattumaram. If she wasn’t, Prowl would just have to wait for her to get back — a prospect that seemed more and more likely as she found herself drawn into several other conversations along the way. Most of them were brief, quick hellos and introductions from mechs and femmes who’d arrived in the night, but one mech asked her what journaling was when she said what she was doing. 

“’S a… kinda spell-crafting, sort of,” Prowl said, willing to try explaining but not very hopeful she would be understood. “I make symbols t’remind me later of things I don’t wanna forget. Th’symbols don’t make anything magic happen though.”

The mech looked at her blankly.

Prowl shrugged, unsurprised by his reaction. “Maybe I don’t know th’right words fer it t’make sense. Ain’t somethin’ Jazz recognized, so it could just be a Prax thing.”

“Sounds… different.”

“Is, from what I’ve seen so far,” Prowl admitted. “But it’s important t’me.”

“Well, good fer ya.”

And that was the end of that, for the time being, at least. She really was either going to have to find a better way of explaining it or just give up on making the distinction. Maybe once she found someone who could explain Polyhexian writing to her better than Jazz could.

Jazz, who wasn’t on, under, or anywhere around the kattumaram when Prowl arrived. Just as well, really, she supposed. She could journal while she waited for her to return, getting everything down before any of it could slip away. Digging out her active journal, she set herself up on the deck where Jazz would be able to see her easily and began to write.

Again she found herself wishing she could dedicate more room to each entry. There were so many things a future diplomat would need to know, like the expectation that everyone pitch in and help. Don’t be shy. Eating with hands… Then there were the things she had  _ learned, _ like chuno and dirt crystals, and miso, and the interesting taste and texture of the fuel mixture. Familiars learning spells from familiars. The haphazard layout of the camp…

Distracted, she found herself rambling about being hit on instead of describing the living situation. It was so confusing! But when she forced herself to finish her last sentence and continue, she just wound up whining about being unable to recharge properly. It felt a bit like a waste of limited journal space, and as such wasn’t a perfect release of her frustration on that score, but it was still therapeutic, to a point. After all, who else did she have to complain to but herself? Even Jazz, sympathetic as she was, didn’t truly understand why certain things were so difficult for her.

Just like Prowl hadn’t always known why Jazz was frustrated or confused or uncomfortable when she’d come all the way to Praxus.

She had half a page of speculation on the difficulties of intercultural marriages and notes for things she wanted to be more mindful of before she knew it.

“’Lo, beautiful.” 

Prowl looked up from her writing to see Jazz smiling at her. “Mornin’,” she said, smiling back. “I think.” She looked up at the sky, checking the position of the sun. Yes, still morning, if only just. “Was hopin’ ya’d find me.”

Happily, Jazz climbed up on the boat and plopped down next to Prowl. Prowl quickly packed up her writing things and pinned them under her foot so she could cuddle freely. With a purr, Jazz practically pounced to wrap her arms around her.

“Y’doin’ okay?” she asked, surprisingly quietly. “No thunder’n dubuk botherin’ ya?”

There. That right there. She didn’t always understand, but she always cared. “No thunder or dubuk,” Prowl said, clinging tight. “Couldn’t hear ’em over how loud th’camp was.”

“Camp is loud, compared t’life on th’kattumaram,” Jazz acknowledged, sounding like she wasn’t sure if that was a problem or not. Prowl had had trouble recharging on the boat, at first, because it was so quiet, and Jazz had thought Praxus City to be absolutely, unbearably loud.

“I’m noticin’ that. Noticin’ a lotta things, an’ don’t know what t’do ’bout ’em.” Prowl wasn’t even sure herself how much of a problem the noise of the camp was going to be. “I did get some sleep, even though it never really stopped. Didn’t realize ’til it was happenin’ that things’d just keep goin’ even after it got dark.”

Jazz thought silently for a klik. “Could move yer hollow t’th’edge of th’camp…?”

“Can? Ain’t weird t’change where yer sleepin’ once ya pick a spot?”

“Ain’t,” Jazz assured. “People move around all th’time.”

“Good t’know.” She would have to take a walk around the camp and see if there was a better spot available, even if she wound up staying where she was in the end. “What about all th’flirtin’?” she blurted out next. “First Chromia last night, then Starviper this morning. What’s goin’ on with that?”

“Did? Knew everyone’d find y’as gorgeous as I do!” Jazz gave her a kiss. “Tell me? Chromia’s good, ain’t she?”

“Good…? No! I mean, I don’t know, I didn’t do anything!” Should she have? She didn’t want to!

“Don’t  _ have’ta,” _ Jazz soothed, even though her EM field colored slightly with confusion. “Not sure why y’wouldn’t, but y’didn’t do nothin’ wrong.”

That was a relief. “I just don’t want to,” Prowl said, trying to picture it and feeling absolutely no desire. “Chromia’s nice. I like ’er. But I don’t want ’er t’touch me like that.”

“’Kay,” Jazz said, with no indication she cared one way or the other.

“There’s only one person I want’n that’s ya.” 

“We make pretty sparkles t’gether,” Jazz preened.

“Do.” Prowl liked “making sparkles” with Jazz. It felt safe and loving and wonderful. But while interfacing wasn’t something she was afraid of anymore, it was something she enjoyed more because it was  _ with Jazz  _ than anything else, and that made getting propositions from others feel weird — especially because they were bonded. Or was that not significant here? Smokescreen and Ricochet weren’t even remotely exclusive, but they were  _ Smokescreen and Ricochet. _ For all Prowl knew, that had been an individual choice, not a cultural one. “Does bein’ mates not matter fer that kinda thing?”

“’Course it matters.” Jazz nibbled Prowl’s shoulder, working her way up to her neck. “’S’always better with ya. I love ya, an’ we’re spark resonant, an’ I love ya.”

“Love ya too,” Prowl said, a curl of warmth and happiness making its way up through the confusion and frustration she was trying not to give in to. She knew she needed to be patient with herself, that she’d thrown herself in even deeper than Jazz had with her swimming lessons. Mistakes and miscommunications were going to happen, and no one else was expecting perfection. “Ain’t exactly what I meant though. It’s… when people see this,” she gestured to the glowing line on her chest that marked her as bonded, “they don’t think anything’a flirtin’ with me? Of, of wantin’ t’interface with me?”

With a purr, Jazz stroked the line, happiness buzzing in her field. “Why would they? Yer so pretty…”

Prowl flushed at the compliment. How was she supposed to approach this intellectually if Jazz was going to keep making her all emotional? “It’s different in Praxus,” she said, squirming a little under Jazz’s claws. “Y’saw how little touching there was there, ’specially in th’ _ capital.” _ Smokescreen, after all, lived in a very different environment than she did. He and Ricochet had more freedom to make the choice to take other partners. “Didn’t expect t’be approached like that. In Praxus, most’d hold off when they saw I already have a mate.”

“Just tell ’em no, then,” Jazz said practically, nibbling on Prowl’s neck cables. “Hit ’em with a flash-bang if they don’t back off. Or call fer help. ’S yer frame. Yer spark. Y’do what y’want.”

“That simple, huh? Just attack anyone doin’ somethin’ I don’t like?”

Jazz stilled, and Prowl felt a growl in her engine. She leaned back to look Prowl very seriously in her optics. “Anyone presses ya, touches ya or harasses ya an’ y’don’t want ’em ta, that’s grounds fer a challenge. S’better if y’defend yerself, but if y’don’t,  _ I will.” _

Prowl blinked, startled as much by the vehemence of her statement as the statement itself. That level of personal, very  _ physical  _ justice wasn’t tolerated in Praxus. “Remind me’a that from time to time?” she asked, equally serious. “If it looks like I’m forgettin’? I know things work different here than I’m used ta, but I dunno  _ how  _ it works so I keep thinkin’ like a Prax.” 

“Will.” Jazz relaxed against Prowl again, petting her comfortingly instead of trying to arouse this time. “Yer doin’ so good already. Everyone who’s talked t’ya thinks yer shy, but nice.”

Again with the shyness. Something she was doing was obviously being interpreted differently than she meant for it to be. “How can I look less shy?” she asked, leaning into the gentle caresses. “Ain’t exactly what I’m goin’ for. A good  _ diplomat  _ is confident, not shy.”

“Prax appreciation’s so much quieter than Poly,” Jazz said with a laugh, repeating almost word for word what Prowl had had to tell her so many times while they were in the capital. “Gotta agree with nice things people say ’bout ya, an’ tell ’em about other good things.”

She certainly had examples of what that looked like in spades from Jazz! And Sundance, actually. “I’ll work on that then,” she said, knowing it would be awkward at first. “Feels an awful lot like bragging.”

“Is,” Jazz said enthusiastically, not like it was an awkward thing at all.

“Then… braggin’ ain’t a bad thing here?”

“Nope!”

Right then. Prowl took a deep breath, held it in, then let it go, imagining the Praxan propriety telling her such a thing would be rude going with it. “’Kay,” she said, smiling at Jazz. “’M I allowed t’brag about what a wonderful mate I have?”

“’Course y’are!” Jazz reached up to lick Prowl’s chevron. “Cuz I am th’ _ best _ mate!”

“Are!” Prowl turned so she could embrace Jazz more fully. “Yer th’best mate ever. Dunno how I got so lucky, but I wanna do all th’things here just like ya did fer me. I’m startin’ t’see how hard it must’a been, an’ I love ya so much fer it.”

Jazz preened, proud of herself and Prowl. “I got th’best mate too.” She kissed her chevron, then licked it again. Her fingers switched back to teasing rather than comforting, and Prowl shivered a little at the  _ want  _ in her field.

Her own desire answered it.

“Kiss me?”

Delighted, Jazz pounced and pulled Prowl into a deep, passionate kiss. It was wonderful, and Prowl slid her hands down from where they’d been wrapped around Jazz’s shoulders to feel along her sides. She knew her mate had sensitive seams just above where her sarong would lay over her hips. All she had to do was find them… 

“Ah!”

There they were.

The touches and kisses continued, slowly migrating across their frames. If the sun shining down on them hadn’t been so warm, Prowl was sure she would have been feeling the air around them heating up along with her frame.

That thought of the sun and what it meant — that they were out in the open on the deck of the kattumaram where anyone could see them — sent a different type of heat skittering through her field. “’M afraid t’look,” she mumbled, embarrassed. “Are we bein’ watched?”

“Probably,” Jazz breathed, still nibbling her way down to Prowl’s chest seam.

Prowl let out a soft squeak. “Oh, Primus!”

Jazz stopped. “Y’okay?”

“I’m… I don’t…” Prowl floundered, torn between wanting to continue, knowing there was no reason not to, and still feeling inappropriately exposed before her plating had even opened. “Under th’blanket?” 

Smiling, Jazz pulled Prowl down on top of her into the sleeping hull and flung a tarp over them. “Good?”

“Yeah.” Prowl tugged a stray corner into place, then descended on Jazz. “Yer th’best. Love ya.”

Jazz kissed her, fingers skimming over Prowl’s sides and up to her doors to tweak the edges. Prowl moaned and kissed back, feeling along Jazz’s chest seam. Of course the tarp wasn’t actually much of a barrier; anyone who’d been watching would certainly still be able to hear them, but the illusion of privacy helped immensely. It let her stop thinking about anyone but Jazz, and Jazz was who she wanted to be thinking about right now.

Prowl felt Jazz arch up into her hands with a moan. The light from the line painted on her chest changed as the armor split open to expose a sliver of her spark.

“Gorgeous.” Scooting down Jazz’s frame, Prowl kissed the slightly parted seam. Jazz cried out. Claws skimmed over her doors and down to the mark on her chest, sending sparks of heat through Prowl’s entire frame.

There was no way to keep her plating from parting enough to mirror Jazz’s, but Prowl didn’t let it go any further than that. Not yet, when she didn’t know if they were going to merge or not. They didn’t always… 

As delighted this time as the very first time she’d coaxed Prowl’s chest open, Jazz licked the edge of the armor. “Ah!” Prowl trembled, doors fluttering against the tarp. “Should— should I open more, or d’ya wanna just…?” 

“Wanna see ya,” Jazz murmured against her chest, licking again. “Wanna touch ya…”

“Ohhh, please.” The armor over her spark shuddered open all the way, bathing Jazz’s frame in blue light. Prowl stroked over the highlighted planes of her face and up to her short audio horns. “Touch me.”

The first thing Jazz did was moan. Then Prowl felt her tongue again on her chest, dipping further into the mechanisms. She couldn’t reach all the way to her spark crystal, deep-set as it was, but the inner workings she was able to reach weren’t ones that got touched often. Prowl let out a soft mewl, wondering how much longer it would be before the electricity she felt building up inside would start condensing into visible sparks.

“Yer so beautiful,” Jazz whispered, pulling back enough to reach deeper into Prowl’s chest with gentle claws.

“…am,” Prowl tried out. The word came out shaky and quiet, and she laughed nervously as soon as she’d said it, but she pressed on gamely. “Thanks fer noticin’.”

Jazz laughed, elated.

“Could probly use some practice,” Prowl allowed, still giggling a bit. “Anyway yer th’one who’s beautiful.”

“Am!” The confirmation sounded so natural coming from Jazz. “We’re beautiful together.” Claws settled against Prowl’s spark, cupping it reverently. Prowl could feel those fingers as her spark pulsed, warm and gentle and so strong and capable. 

“Are good together,” Prowl agreed, this time easily. She found the hand not currently cradled in her chest and threaded her fingers through Jazz’s. “Love ya.”

“Love ya…” 

Prowl felt Jazz’s claws slowly, gently dip into her spark. It was an intensely intimate feeling; different from merging, in that there wasn’t the sense of becoming one with Jazz, but there was still an incredible sense of closeness. Like stoking a fire, Jazz coaxed her spark to spin and pulse faster, building up heat and charge, and tinier motes of light began leaping from her plating to flicker against the trailing leaders of Jazz’s spark where they were peeking from her chest.

Jazz was speaking, murmuring a stream of loving words that Prowl could no longer hear. She writhed against her love’s frame, almost lost in the feeling.

She was pretty sure she was telling Jazz she loved her. The sentiment was there in her field, anyway, even if the words weren’t coherent.

She overloaded.

Her vision whited out. She felt Jazz’s field turn smug as she guided her chest closed and laid her down, petting her between the doorwings. She heard Jazz start to sing.

“’S’a pretty song,” Prowl said when she could talk again. 

“Gossipin’ with th’winds,” Jazz said smugly. “They’re incorrigible gossips, an’ll tell th’sea an’ th’stars an’ all’a th’world.”

“Hmm. Tellin’ ’em good things, I hope.” Prowl nuzzled Jazz’s plating, happy to float a little longer in the glow before facing the world beyond the tarp.

“Always!”

“Good.”

It wasn’t long before Prowl started to feel restless though. She hadn’t eaten anything since last night, and that had been after a lot of work — work she should probably volunteer to keep helping with, after she did something about her hunger. “Is it all just sorta gettin’ th’camp set up and runnin’ until th’harvest then?”

“Yeah.” Jazz nuzzled her. “Could do some food-findin, or start yer talkin’. Or there’ll be games, competitions, if y’want.”

“Need t’do somethin’ ’bout food first, then… I dunno. I’m thinkin’ it might be good t’take a bit more time gettin’ used ta things before any serious talkin’.” She could practice not being shy while more people arrived. She wasn’t even sure yet  _ who  _ she should be talking to anyway. “What kinda games?”

“Whatever game y’want, beautiful. Tangohia ake,” a complicated Polyhexian game of picking up sticks, “dice game, storytellin’ game… Go git th’one y’wanna play an’ somma those kelapa charms y’made an’ sit by a fire while y’eat. Have a nice crowd inna snap.” Jazz petted her, and Prowl saw a flash of her teeth as she smirked. “Jus’ make sure y’win.”

“And then brag about it?” Prowl guessed. She was pretty good with the sticks, despite not having claws.

“An’ git lotsa shiny new beads from th’other players.”

Polyhexians and their gambling. Her contemporaries back on the mainland would be shocked if they saw her engaging in such things, but far from being reluctant, Prowl was curious. Playing against Jazz never had any real stakes, even when they used dice or beads to keep score. The ownership of those items never changed hands, and Smokescreen, avid gambler he was, swore up and down that the risk of losing and the thrill of winning were what really made it fun.

“Still need t’find th’food first,” Prowl pointed out. “Am I supposed t’bring everything back t’th’fires?”

“’S’long as y’bring somethin’ back sometimes,” Jazz explained patiently, “y’can take a bowl from th’pots anytime. Or y’can food-find just fer yerself. Or there’s still stuff on th’kattumaram y’can have.”

So many options. That was contributing to her general feelings of uncertainty, she realized. Not having clear, straightforward rules for  _ anything  _ made it hard to get her bearings when she was used to strict, comprehensive protocols for  _ everything.  _ She was having to make decisions about things she’d never had to before, and she wasn’t used to it.

Yet.

“Wanna food-find,” she decided. “Starviper was goin’ with a group earlier. Maybe there’s others goin’ now.”

“Almost definitely,” Jazz encouraged.

“Then that’s what I’ll do,” Prowl said with a firm nod. “What’re yer plans?”

“Was gonna rest, then see if anyone’s doin’ a footrace.”

Prowl grinned. “Make sure ya win.”

“Will!” Jazz kissed her. “Even if yer not watchin’.”

“I’ll come watch if I hear ’bout any races,” Prowl promised. Jazz would absolutely show off with or without her, but she knew she liked having her there. Her eagerness to have Prowl present during her sparring matches in Praxus had made that clear, and it was no hardship for Prowl to watch her mate in action.

Getting on with the cycle did mean coming out from under the tarp. Not a big deal, she reminded herself, and sat up and pushed it back.

She almost expected to see people watching, waiting to scold them for their indiscretion. But while there were people in and around the boat moorings, they were going about their own business, not looking at them.

Utterly shameless, Jazz stretched, showing off her new scratches. Prowl was a little more circumspect as she got up, straightening her sarong and making sure her plating was settled properly before retrieving her journal. She made sure it was wrapped against getting wet, then stowed it in her bag next to her spell components. There was only room for one book, but she was only writing in one at a time, and this way it wouldn’t be necessary to come all the way back to the kattumaram to write things down if she encountered something she wanted to record.

A small pouch of kelapa charms and beads went into the bag next, followed by the tangohia ake. And because she knew they’d be a useful thing to have while food-finding, she grabbed several squares of cloth, which could be tied into a variety of forms. Most ubiquitously, a knotted bag that could be slung over her shoulder and help her carry whatever she found.

Jazz gave her a quick kiss. “Love ya.”

“Love ya too. Have a good nap.”

Hopping down onto the riverbank, Prowl set off back to the camp. She heard it before she saw it, the combined sounds of everyone clearing ohe, tending the fires, putting up temporary rain shelters, and talking loudly over the top of it all just as remarkable as they had been when she’d woken up. When she got within sight of the clearing, however, she was struck by how… small it all looked. It had expanded a lot compared to how little had been there last night, yes, but on the whole… 

“Not even enough people for a good sized dinner party,” Sundance meowed, trotting up to join her. “More generous though.”

“Oh? Have you been begging for treats?”

“Pets,” Sundance corrected with a flick of an ear. There was a proud sparkle in her optics. “They don’t ignore me here. They talk to me!”

They did? “People talk to you at home.” Especially Silverstreak.

“But not like I’m a  _ person,” _ the cat scoffed, twining around Prowl’s legs. “Someone asked me whether some tunnels they found were still occupied, and someone else wanted me to help find a hexbug hot spot.”

“Really?” That was amazing! Prowl reached down and scooped her up, smiling. “And did you? Find it?”

“Did.” She rubbed her head against Prowl’s chin. “They were tasty!”

“I bet.” Even Prowl could admit that hexbug capsules were pretty good, and she knew Sundance loved them. “Did you eat so much you don’t need to come hunting with me?”

“I can go nap with Jazz maybe?”

“She’d probably like that.”

“Will then.” She licked Prowl’s cheek and nuzzled her helm one last time. “When you come back, I have more new spells! Since you keep insisting on getting wet, I thought you might like to be able to make yourself float, among other things. Bloodmaw and the other spirits are very helpful,” she said, then jumped down. Sand sprayed around her feet on the landing, but she caught her balance instantly and scampered away, toward the boats.

As Jazz had predicted, it didn’t take long for Prowl to find a small group preparing to go out food-finding. “Alright if I join ya?”

“’Course!” Chromia smiled, showing off her fangs. “Aquaside’n Sharptooth,” she introduced, a blue and green mech with a small, cybercat-sized turbohound of some sort as a familiar, “’a Waterscar Island, an’ Eclipse’a Seawatcher Island.” The unaccompanied red and orange femme nodded. “She’s one’a Keahi’s Hounds. Guys, this is Prowl’a Rainclouds. Jazz’s mate.”

“Welcome!”

“Hey.”

“Hi.” Prowl smiled at each of them, including Sharptooth, fixing names with faces and clans. She was starting to wish she had a map so she’d have some idea where each clan was in relation to each other. “Keahi’s Hounds?” She recognized the name of the goddess, but not what it meant in this context.

“’M fire-sparked,” Eclipse said. “Got one’a th’goddess’ own hounds livin’ in m’ spark.”

Prowl still didn’t understand, and that must have shown on her face or in her field because Chromia laughed. “I’ll tell ya th’story while we walk, sound good?”

“’Kay.” Prowl certainly had no problems with that. She really was hungry. 

Chromia set their course, such as it was, vaguely following the river along the rough line between bakau crystals and the other, less seawater-tolerant species that made up the majority of the jungle. Aquaside and Eclipse both wandered off whenever they found something edible — a handful of hexbugs, a grouping of crystals growing under the sand, or a cluster of seed crystals. They happily added the small mechanimals Sharptooth retrieved to their knotted sailcloth bags as well. Prowl, meanwhile, stuck close to Chromia’s heels, both so she could observe and double-check all the different things they were gathering — there were  _ so many things; _ not just ones that were edible, but ones that weren’t — and also so she could hear about Keahi’s Hounds.

Keahi, the Polyhexian goddess of fire, was credited with building the islands. That much Prowl knew. Jazz had told her the story of Stormrunner, a Polyhexian hero who had seduced the goddess to steal fire for mortals. According to her, that was what made mortals a hybrid of what had come before and the divine. Chromia’s stories about the Hounds expanded on that tale, presenting Keahi as an avid hound-keeper who kept many, many fire-hounds. She collected them from their hot spots and trained them from puppies. Since Stormrunner had released the sparks from his liaison with the goddess into the sky, when they settled close enough to one of Keahi’s treasure-hunting grounds, the Hounds — intelligent, like all the animal-gods in Polyhexian stories; animals, yet also people in all ways that mattered — could sniff them out. Sometimes when they found a spark with an especially strong tie to their divine ancestor, the Hounds would settle and become one with that spark. Those people were fire-sparked, and it was very, very rare for any spirit except the Hound in their souls to come forth and guide them.

“Th’Hound’s magic’s just too strong,” Chromia explained when Prowl asked why. The crystal trees were thinning and there was more sand under their feet. She could hear the ocean, and the koekoea calling up above, so she wasn’t surprised when they finally stepped out onto a black, sandy beach. “They got Keahi’s magic, but they also got th’Hound, shapin’ ’em t’fit. Ain’t a lotta room in there fer ’em t’be anythin’ else.”

Prowl nodded, relating that to her own experiences and studies. “Magic’s too big fer all’a it t’fit in one person.” She didn’t have the space in her processor to both study the stars and seek training from the priests as a healer; having too many “spirits” sounded somewhat similar. 

“Least a fire-hound’s better’n just a plain old dubuk,” Eclipse heckled from somewhere behind and to the right of them. Prowl turned in time to see her step out onto the sand. 

“Tear ya t’pieces while yer still trying t’fire-summon,” Chromia snarled back.

“Could  _ try.”  _

Her tone made it clear Eclipse thought the attempt would fail. Prowl might have worried Chromia really would try in order to prove her wrong, but it looked more like they were talking up a fight rather than preparing for one. Jazz had done it often with Arcee, and after a while Prowl had learned when she was serious about having a match and when she was just posturing.

They snapped back and forth while Aquaside rather absently agreed that they were both the most awesome that ever did awesome, but they weren’t as awesome as a pup that could actually sneak (like he was). He scanned the shore looking for edibles.

“—-thin’ t’ be said fer bein’  _ able _ t’—”

“Stop fightin’ an’ git yer oversized canine afts over here!” Aquaside called, interrupting Chromia mid-brag.

“—summo… huh?” Both of the other femmes dropped their argument to trot over to where he was crouched in the sand at the edge of the waves.

“What  _ is  _ it?” Prowl asked when she spotted the oddly-shaped blob that had drawn his attention. Large enough to fill both hands if she tried to pick it up, it looked almost like someone had spilled a pan of gelled energon in the sand before it had finished setting. 

“Kakaru,” Chromia answered, already looking along the beach for more of the things. “Bit early fer a full bloom, but maybe—”

“There’s another!” Eclipse pointed, and sure enough, there was another slightly domed kakaru blob lying on the beach. And another. And another… 

“Nice! Prowl, y’brought more cloths, yeah? Tie us up another sack t’carry these back.” Chromia picked up the blob (carefully avoiding using her claws to pierce it) and rinsed it off in the waves. Eclipse trotted over to the one she’d spotted and did the same. Prowl had a fresh sack ready and waiting when they came back, and was surprised how heavy they were when they dropped them in.

“Are they dead?” The ones in the bag didn’t move once they settled at the bottom, and none of the ones on the beach looked like they were trying to go anywhere. What had Jazz said about kakaru? She’d mentioned them once; something about the water being so full of them it looked like you could walk on them, but that that wasn’t a good idea because— “Can they still sting?”

“Naw. Sea rips th’stingers off.”

“Not  _ all’a _ ’em,” Aquaside corrected, while Sharptooth picked up one of the blobs in his mouth and dragged it further up the beach away from the water before tearing into it. “Some’a ’em still sting.”

“Ack. Right! Forgot that.”

“Here.” Chromia tore into another one, ripping some part of it away and digging into the wound to pull out a handful of the insides and offer it to Prowl. “No stingers now. Try?”

“Su~ure,” Prowl said, instantly less sure when Chromia dropped the mess into her hands with a wet  _ splat!  _ It dripped over her fingers, liquid that was probably a mix of its energon and seawater running down the shreds of the quivering, semi-solid mass. Who had  _ ever  _ looked at this and thought to eat it?!

Chromia just looked at her expectantly, then started digging into the rest of her own. Probably so it didn’t go to waste after cutting it open. 

She’d said she wanted to try all the things… Gamely, Prowl pinched off a small piece and put it in her mouth. It tasted, not exactly surprisingly, of the sea. If there was any inherent flavor to the kakaru itself, it wasn’t coming through past the salt and rust. What was more remarkable was the texture. Her impression of a gel wasn’t too far off, but each bite somehow managed to both crunch and squish between her teeth as she chewed.

It wasn’t appealing at all. The lack of real flavor was disconcerting and the texture was all wrong. The only,  _ only _ thing going for it was that it wasn’t currently moving like a live hexbug and… given that the mass jiggled in her hand… she couldn’t really say that it was much better.

But it was taboo to eat only part of a creature. Polyhexians had a great respect for life; if a mechanimal’s spark extinguished so she could eat, she needed to finish. Since she hadn’t personally been responsible for these kakaru’s deaths, she hoped it’d be okay to refuse to eat more, but she had to finish the bit in her hand.

She managed to eat it all, chewing it as little as possible to avoid dealing with the texture. If they were bringing them back to the camp, maybe they were planning to do something with them that would make them more palatable? “They just get eaten like this, as they are?”

“When y’find ’em like this, on th’beach, they are. Or bring ’em back an’ add ’em to th’pots,” Chromia answered. She spotted something and snatched it from the sand, like Jazz did when gathering hexbugs. It turned out to be a tiny nijan, and she washed the sand from it in the surf and popped it in her mouth whole. “Fishermechs bring back fresh ones, an’ those git stored fer later.”

Mixed in with the chuno and miso sounded better than eating them like this. Hungry as she was, Prowl decided she could wait. “What’s th’stuff in th’pots called?” she asked, carefully stepping around the kakaru blobs to look for other things she could pick up safely. Aquaside and Eclipse were ranging farther out, not having any trouble with them, but they knew what the stingers looked like, and probably had a built-up resistance to the things. She really was going to have to start working on that, unpleasant as the prospect was. 

“Hupa,” Chromia answered, snagging another tiny critter from the sand.

Prowl didn’t have the reflexes to grab the fast-moving nijan with just her fingers, so she ended up digging up remis from the sand.  _ Those _ were at least familiar, and she was hungry, so she ate most of those as she went, though she was mindful of Jazz’s words about bringing things back sometimes and tucked a few away with the rest of the things they’d found. Being able to eat from the pots if she couldn’t find anything sounded like a very good idea. 

She folded a third bag to carry her empty shells back in too. She still wasn’t very good at turning them into beads and charms, but practice made perfect, and if she was going to gamble with the ones she’d already made (though not the ones she was wearing), having more also sounded like a good idea.

Eclipse and Aquaside eventually wandered out of sight while she was digging. Chromia didn’t exactly stay close either, but she was always visible whenever Prowl looked up. At one point they stopped to wave at a kattumaram making its way to the river, and one of the three mechs on board dove over the side and popped up on the shore to grab some of the washed-up kakaru.

Prowl watched him swim back to his boat, still amazed that anyone could swim so well. Despite Jazz’s lessons, she could only barely drag herself through the water in the direction she intended and keep her head above water for a bit. It made the prospect of a floating spell a very nice one indeed.

“Gonna head back t’camp,” Chromia said a short while later. “Know yer way back on yer own?”

“I think so.” If nothing else, following the river would eventually bring her back to a place she recognized and could get to the camp from. She didn’t have much room left in her bags though, so there wouldn’t be much use in staying behind. “But I’d rather come back with ya’n see what happens with all’a this stuff.”

“’Kay.” Chromia held out her hand to help Prowl up.

The trek back was much the same as the outbound trip. Chromia continued to add crystals and hexbugs and any small mechanimal she could catch to her bag. About halfway back they found a nest of long-legged jumpers that she called  _ aouli, _ which she insisted on adding to Prowl’s bag of shells because they’d eat the hexbugs they’d captured if put in the same container.

“Oh!” Prowl stopped, looking down at the bag in surprise after they’d gone a short distance. “They chirp!”

Chromia laughed. “There’s a Kokako story ’bout aouli.”

“Yeah?” The bag continued to chirp in several different voices. It was almost like a strange kind of singing. “Tell me?”

“Th’aouli were Kokako’s favorite food. ’E liked t’eat ’em so much that ’e’d snatch ’em up whenever ’e saw ’em, even if ’e wasn’t hungry…” While they walked, Chromia told her about all the efforts that the aouli went through to hide from Kokako. But the bird was quite smart, and he sussed out their hiding places, took apart their traps, shelters, and homes, and hunted them mercilessly.

Eventually the aouli decided they needed to fight back against the terrible bird. Their warriors gathered. But the aouli were tiny, and even the warriors among them were no match for the Kokako. 

So the aouli warriors decided to go and seek advice from other small things that the Kokako did not eat. They went to the kina and the humenga and the kakaru and found that the Kokako did not eat them because they were poison, but when the aouli asked where they could get poison too, these creatures had no advice for them. 

Finally the ke kai (another small, poisonous sea creature, one Prowl did not know) told the aouli warriors to go to the Ketzal. Ketzal was not poisonous, but was possessed of very powerful magic. The aouli were afraid, for Ketzal also ate them, but they were warriors and their purpose was to go out and bring back useful things for the clan, even if they died in the process, and so they went.

Ketzal listened to their tale, and considered. Finally she said she would sell to them a poison if ten of them would allow themselves to be eaten by her. 

After conferring, they agreed: if she would give them the poison and allowed them to do battle against the Kokako first, then ten of their number would consent to be eaten. She agreed to this and gave them a magical warpaint for them to wear, which would turn their very flesh into a most deadly toxin.

Returning to the clan, the aouli warriors painted themselves in bright blues and reds and yellows. They made themselves as bright as possible, and next time the shadow of Kokako’s wings fell across the aouli clan, while those not-warriors who remained unpainted hid, the brightly colored warriors hopped out where the bird could not help but to see them. As he had so many times before, Kokako snatched up one of the aouli and ate it in a single bite.

And swiftly died.

“Just like that?” It wasn’t like it had been a peaceful story up to that point, but there was something brutal about the simple, straightforward death of the bird and the fate of the aouli warrior.

“Just like that,” Chromia confirmed. “Don’t eat an aouli warrior. Don’t  _ touch _ an aouli warrior.”

In other words, avoid brightly painted aouli. All of the ones Chromia had put in her bag had been dull, brown and black and camouflaged with the sand and dirt, but Prowl had no doubt there were colorful ones out there somewhere. “What happened to th’rest’a th’warriors? Th’ones that told Ketzal she could eat ’em?”

“Once Kokako was dead, she came t’th’aouli t’claim ’er payment. The aouli discussed who should volunteer. None’a th’warriors had remained unpainted, an’ ten’a ’em hopped forward, thinkin’ that Ketzal would either realize th’trick and leave ’em in peace, or would, like Kokako, eat only one’a ’em and then die.” They were getting close to the camp now; Prowl could hear it. She knew more people had arrived, but the clearing didn’t seem to have grown much. Still smaller than a decent sized dinner party. “But Ketzal ’erself was a powerful’n clever priest-mage an’ had brewed th’antitoxin fer ’erself. She ate th’ten warriors an’ flew away, sated,” Chromia finished up.

“So in the end, everyone died ’cept fer her.” Kind of a morbid story, in Prowl’s opinion.

“Not all’a th’warriors got eaten. An’ th’aouli clan survived,” Chromia corrected. “Everythin’ gits eaten by somethin’.”

That did seem to be the case here in Polyhex. “Guess that’s one’a th’lessons’a th’story? Besides lettin’ Ketzal be th’one t’eat aouli warriors?” Ketzal was a spirit associated with magic, and Prowl saw that continuing in this story, brewing both the toxic warpaint and the antidote for herself. Maybe all the things got eaten, but not everything could eat everything else. Just because Ketzal could eat the poisonous aouli warriors didn’t mean, for example, a kokako, or a Polyhexian newling could.

“Yeah. Lotta different lessons t’learn,” Chromia confirmed, then changed the subject. “C’mon. We gotta store th’food we brought.” She sidled up to a fire and Prowl followed, watching to see what she did with it. “Hey!” she hailed the mechs tending the fire and making… crates? Cages? Something out of ohe stalks. “Make some space, cuz I found enough fuel t’keep th’pot goin’ all day’n then some!”

O~kay, apparently bragging about it was what she was going to do. Just like Jazz had last night.  _ Don’t be shy, _ Prowl reminded herself, and, against all her training and instincts, hefted one of her bags and chimed in with, “Not by yerself ya didn’t. Some’a this’s mine.”

“Yeah?” The mechs and femmes (all of whom sitting here now had spotted paint jobs) looked interested. 

“Yeah.” She was carrying some things she hadn’t caught or picked up herself, but, “Dug up all th’remis myself.”

“Still ’live?” one of the spotted mechs asked. “’Ere.” He nudged a Praxan shipping crate that was half filled with sand and water toward her when Prowl nodded.

“Eep!” One of the aouli came leaping out of the bag as soon as she opened a flap.

With a laugh, the creature was caught. They, she found, were going into a basket cage, which told her what the cages they’d been making when she walked up were for. The best way to keep the energon of a living creature fresh was to keep the creature alive. That also meant that if the critter wasn’t eaten, it could be released, and wouldn’t be killed unnecessarily.

“An’ what about these?” Prowl asked, displaying the crystals she’d picked up once the kakaru were tipped out into a large bucket. There were already a couple in it, indicating someone had already returned from the beach with their catch ahead of them. Almost immediately, several people reached in and snagged one, cutting them up and adding them directly to the hupa. Apparently not storing those for very long. 

“Eh…” A mech with yellow paint and greenish spots scooted over to look at what was left. “I’ll show ya.”

Mostly he just helped her sort them. He cut up or broke open one of each to show her how to add them to the pot, giving her the names and a description of what they’d taste like, generally either sweet or spicy. One he described as “no-flavor crystal”, which he took the time to grind rather than just cut up. “’S fer bulk more’n anything else,” he explained, “but it takes a loooong time t’dissolve if ya don’t start ’em out real small. Don’t wanna break a tooth.”

The mechanimals Sharptooth had killed and brought back were either consumed immediately as they were, or cut open to put in the pot. They were dead, so they needed to be eaten. Interestingly, when adding them to the hupa, the whole animal was added in pieces, instead of drained like when consumed by themselves.

“Do th’pieces git softer over th’fire?” Some of them went in a bit big, and Prowl worried again for her teeth. She supposed she could always cut them up with a knife in her bowl; if eating with her fingers was allowed, stabbing her food probably wouldn’t be held against her.

“Somma ’em.” Her temporary teacher pushed the newest lot of chunks down to the bottom of the pot with a piece of ohe. “Ain’t none’a these hard as crystal t’begin with.  _ That  _ kinda platin’ gits used fer tools, not fuel.” Right. Polyhexians were much more used to chewing their food than those on the mainland.

Curious, and still a little hungry, Prowl filled her bowl partway. Between the fresh crystals, the kakaru, and the bits of various mechanimals, it was… lumpier than it had been last night. The flavors of both the chuno and the miso — that heavy salt flavor — still came through the strongest, but this time there were only hints of crystalline sweetness and spice. Mostly it was heavy and metallic from the pieces of glitchmouse and other small creatures. The pieces of kakaru still didn’t taste like much, but the texture was improved somewhat by being part of the hupa.

“Still makin’ faces at yer food?”

“Huh? No!” She hoped she hadn’t been, anyway. Prowl shifted sideways a little as Chromia settled beside her to give the other femme room; despite being a dog, she just spread out to fill the whole available space as well as any cat. “Ain’t never had fuel like this before. Was tryin’ t’think how I’d describe it in m’ _ journal.” _

Chromia tilted her head. “Dunno what that is.”

Was now a good time? As good as any, Prowl supposed. “’S this,” she said, pulling the book out of her bag to show Chromia. “Dunno how t’describe it. Jazz said it was priest-mage stuff.”

All of the gathered mages just blinked their visors uncomprehendingly at it. Maybe they’d never seen a book before? Prowl hadn’t seen any flimsy among the Polyhexian artifacts for sale in Hightower, nor had she seen any once people started arriving. And she already knew only the warriors went to Hightower.

“Drawin’ symbols’n stuff  _ is  _ priest-mage stuff, yeah?” She opened the book to show the last page she’d written on. “Like this?”

They crowded close, Chromia shoving one of the others out of the way so she could see. 

“Looks like a spell ’bout a…” one of them started, but then trailed off.

“Sand,” Chromia suggested. She picked up a handful of the black grains and let them fall slowly and evenly from her fingers. “Sand spell.”

“Dunno why anyone’d make that kind’a sand spell, ’bout each bit by bit.” The speaker trailed his fingers through the sand nearest him, making a ripple pattern. “Swoosh. Much better.”

“It… ain’t about sand,” Prowl said, a bit at a loss. “Maybe I can explain better if y’explain t’me first? ’Bout symbols like these?” She felt along her necklaces for the one with a carved sharkticon tooth. Jazz had interpreted it as a no-fear spell, weaving a story by looking at the shapes on it, but she hadn’t actually been able to read it. Just recognize certain elements.

Chromia leaned forward so she could hold the sharkticon tooth, examining it from every angle, without tugging too hard on Prowl’s neck. “Spell’a courage,” she concluded. “T’overcome fear’a deep water.”

“But what’s it say, exactly?”

“Says y’were out on yer kattumaram, sailin’ from here t’Prax. Out past th’Teeth, where Moana’n th’ancestors’re yer only guides…”

“She’s gotta star spirit, so she’ll be watchin’ ’em most.”

Chromia shoved the other mage. “Who’s castin’ this spell? But ’e’s right,” she said, turning back to Prowl. “Th’stars were spread out above ya like a blanket, an’ th’sea reflected everyone’a ’em perfectly. But there was thunder in th’distance…”

Prowl listened rather incredulously as the priest-mages told her a story fundamentally the same as the one Jazz had told her, only even more clearly made up on the spot, as they bickered, made suggestions, and injected description into each other’s speech like they were playing one of the storytelling games Jazz had taught her. The confrontation with the sharkticons went a bit differently but… 

“So then,” she said when they finally wound down and she could get a word in edgewise, “it’ll always be different? Every priest-mage who sees it’ll  _ read—  _ er, see a different story?” Primus, this would be easier if she had the right vocabulary! But a worrying suspicion was beginning to form in the back of her processor that maybe there  _ were  _ no words for reading and writing as she knew them.

“’Course.” Chromia shrugged like that was normal. “’S yer spell, so y’can tell it however y’want.”

“Y’did ask us what it was though.”

“Did.”

“Yeah,” Prowl said, nodding, “cuz I wanted t’understand. There’s parts that have t’always mean th’same thing though, aren’t there?” Please let there be? “Y’all agreed it was a spell dealin’ with fear an’ deep water.”

“Here.” Chromia turned the tooth in her hands to rub her finger over one section. “Feels like deep-water waves. An’ this,” she ran her fingers over the jagged part of each of those runes. “Scary story. Prolly a storm.”

“Cuz it’s always a storm when it happens over deep water.”

“Could be a monster.”

“Monster’s inna different part though.”

“Ain’t a monster. ’S’a critter. Sharkticon.”

“Big sharkticon.”

“An’ here,” Chromia spoke over them, outlining a very deep, confident spiral, “is triumph by overcomin’ fear. Spell’a courage.”

The outline of a spell, maybe, by Praxan standards. But if she was understanding Chromia correctly, there were no details. No precision. How? How did they manage, if their writing was the equivalent of, of bullet points on a note card? “They ever git more complex than this? Th’spells, I mean.”

“Oh sure. Y’ever seen a dancer’s spell? All’a th’rhythm.” Chromia drew a collection of waves and swirls in the sand that was very… rhythmic.

“Can tell it as complicated as y’want,” another shrugged. “Star from Sharptooth Island’s a fantastic spell-caster.”

“Spell-caster meanin’ good at makin’ th’symbols or tellin’ what they say?” Writing or reading? “Are there special words fer those things?”

“Spell-craftin’n spell-castin’? Ain’t really.”

“Star’s got a gift fer storytellin’,” Chromia clarified that point. “Can turn a little thing like this inta an’ epic.”

“That why yer sand-spell’s so long? Cuz it’s complicated?”

“Is complicated, but it ain’t about sand,” Prowl repeated. “’S about th’camp,” and how noisy and disorganized it was. “I wanted t’put a description in th’ _ journal  _ so I wouldn’t forget anything.”

Two of them wrinkled their noses in unison. “Ain’t th’camp!”

“Doesn’t look noisy at all.”

Well at least they agreed it was noisy. “Says right here, ‘ _ there is not a moment when some sort of activity isn’t going on, even in the dead of night’,”  _ she read, tapping her finger across the glyphs as she spoke. “Means, ‘there’s always somethin’ goin’ on, even in th’middle’a th’night’. Each symbol’s a sound.”

Optic bands all around the fire blinked in bemusement.

“Naw,” he said, serving himself another bowl of hupa. “’S’definitely ’bout sand. All’a th’sand.”

_ “‘There-is-not-a-mo-ment’,”  _ Prowl repeated, clearly enunciating each syllable as she pointed again. “Sounds, not sand, an’ th’sounds build words.”

“Why waste time drawin’ sounds when y’could just draw th’words? ’S silly.”

Chromia shook her head. “Prax spell-castin’s weird.”

Prowl frowned. It was no weirder than Polyhexian spell casting! Which was, apparently, its own very strange, limited thing, and not at all the equivalent to Praxan writing she’d once thought it to be. 

That… was  _ really  _ going to complicate the process of drafting any formal treaties. 

“So why’d ya make a sand-spell when y’can just pick up a handful?”

“I  _ didn’t,”  _ Prowl groaned, a little too stunned by the revelation to be overly frustrated. Probably a good thing, since it wouldn’t do to take it out on them. It was just another cultural divide she’d have to find a way to bridge; she couldn’t imagine  _ how,  _ but it wasn’t anyone’s fault that it existed. “Why d’ya keep sayin’ it’s about sand?”

“Cuz it’s tiny’n th’shapes repeat.”

“Waves repeat,” Chromia put in, then shrugged. “But not like that. ’S too tiny, an’ waves ain’t unchangin’.” She drew a sine wave in the sand that changed over time. “Like that.”

“Ain’t  _ anythin’ _ that repeats that much, without rhythm.”

“Or  _ emotion.” _

“Ain’t about emotion,” Prowl said. “’S about information.”

That garnered another round of bemused blinks.

“Prax magic’s all mixed around,” Chromia said decisively. “Spells ain’t good enough fer information; they’re all ’bout emotion.”

Prowl tried not to hold her breath. “Then what d’ya use fer information?”

“Talkin’. Tetere.”

“All’a th’gossip.”

“Experience,” Chromia said firmly. “Ain’t a better way t’pass on information than experience.”

She wasn’t wrong about that, but, “Experience ain’t always possible.”

Chromia scoffed. “It don’t matter how many times y’been told somethin’, there just ain’t a substitute fer tryin’ a thing fer learnin’ it.”

“Don’t mean y’shouldn’t even try t’explain things y’can’t experience easily.”

“Sure. Ain’t any’a us’re goin’ t’Prax.” Chromia shrugged. “That’s why th’warriors tell all’a their stories when they git back.”

“But—” Prowl stopped and shook her head. “Never mind.” Those stories involved as much emotion as information themselves. Clearly, that aspect of communication was more important here than it was in Praxus. 

Meanwhile it was kind of hitting her that Jazz wasn’t, well, she  _ was _ illiterate, but not because she’d been forbidden from learning something only priest-mages were allowed, but because there was no real writing system for her to learn. Just interpretive storytelling based on a small lexicon of simple pictographs and a lot of emotive squiggles.

“Somethin’ wrong?” 

“Eep!” Prowl hadn’t realized her doors were drooping so much until Chromia’s fingers trailed along the bottom edge of one of them to lift it up. She jerked it out of her reach without smacking her hand away. “Not wrong, no. Just got lots t’think about.”

“Can come think in m’sleepin’ hollow?” someone offered.

_ Just tell ’em no,  _ Jazz had said. “No thanks,” Prowl said, pushing down how flustered the offers still made her. “Rather just finish eatin’, then maybe play a game.” She rattled the tangohia ake at her side.

Everyone perked up in interest. Almost immediately mechs and femmes started pulling out beads, dice, charms, shells, sea gems, shiny rocks, string, sailcloth squares… anything they thought valuable enough to bet. No money, but that Prowl had expected. Polyhexians were often very shrewd merchants, but if they didn’t have a writing system, obviously they wouldn’t have a currency.

Or credit.

It did sort of pull into focus the haphazard way Polyhexian dice were numbered.

They’d gone a few rounds (during which Prowl had successfully proven she was no newling to be fleeced) when a loud  _ meowww  _ carried across the camp, heralding the arrival of her familiar. “What is it?” Prowl asked, looking up as Sundance slid into sight.

“Jazz’s racing,” Sundance reported. “Thought you’d want to know.”

“Oh! I do!” Prowl started to get up, then stopped to pick up her things and scrub out her bowl with sand with a quick, “M’mate’s racin’,” to the others. She worked fast, both because she wanted to watch Jazz and because she wasn’t as worried about sand sticking in the bowl anymore. She could magic away sand now! Thanking Chromia and the others for their help, she hurried off, following Sundance back to Jazz.

“No fraggin’ in th’water,” Chromia called after her.

Prowl stumbled, but managed not to trip.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Along with several different corvids, like the Caledonian Crow and American Raven, the Polyhexian Kokako includes elements of the New Zealand Kea and this video was just too good not to share: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6vY0s83NLg


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter warnings:** CHILD AND INFANT DEATHS, child endangerment, violence, bees (no, no one gets stung, but Riz has a problem with bees so it gets included as a warning).

.

.

.

Prowl was still having trouble recharging. Even after several cycles on Harvest Island, it was somehow both too quiet and too noisy, too hot, too cold, too, too, too… all the things. The wind rattling the ohe and the waves echoing from the sea were a constant assault on her audios, and there was no escaping the persistent on-again-off-again rain. It was great that it no longer drummed down directly on her, but it was loud against the tarp over her sleeping hollow, and it did nothing to discourage the birds and other, unnamed things out in the crystal jungle beyond the camp. All that before taking into account the constant activity going on around her! Strings of windchimes, the crackle of fires, mechs and femmes moving, talking, interfacing… So much sound, but none of it the constant backdrop of the _city_ she was used to.

If only it was distracting enough to keep her from her circling thoughts in addition to sleep.

She was starting to, for lack of a better way to put it, miss Jazz. Their separation was turning out to run deeper than their sleeping arrangements. It wasn’t just that someone needed to stay with the kattumaram; Prowl, as a priest-mage, was welcome in the camp and allowed, expected even, to interact with the other priest-mages, but Jazz was a warrior. She was only grudgingly tolerated around the fires, and then only if she brought food to share and kept mostly to the sidelines. Rightly, she’d explained, as there was no use for warriors on Harvest Island, but Prowl had been surprised by the rigidness of the caste division and, consequently, how little time they spent together.

At least she had Sundance, who didn't seem to mind the noise as much as she did. Her audio flaps twitched constantly, honing in on each nighttime sound, but she slept peacefully in Prowl's arms. Prowl was thankful her familiar had taken to staying with her through the night while she adjusted to the rhythm of island life and waited for the harvest.

No one had been able to give her a concise idea of when it would happen. It was, apparently, the job of the elder priest-mages to announce when "the right time" was. Chromia had just shrugged and said it was part of their magic when Prowl asked how they would know, and suggested she ask them herself if she was so curious. A good idea, especially since as “elders” they were probably the ones she needed to approach first as an official ambassador too, but she’d just been so busy! Food-finding and improving the camp were time-consuming activities, and it turned out there were preparations that needed to happen with the boats too. Jazz had directed her in converting theirs, emptying it of everything but the basics: rope, anchor, oars, a crate of blankets Jazz had bought in Hightower before they left…

In addition to needing the go ahead from the elders, they were apparently also waiting for “enough boats”. Prowl wondered how many was "enough". Jazz still maintained that this was the largest gathering of clans that ever happened in Polyhex, and that it had already grown quite large, but to Prowl it remained quite small. Sure, they finally had enough people now for that imagined dinner party, but the whole camp was still only about as big as the marketplace and docks in Hightower, which were themselves only a fraction of the city. A large gathering on the mainland numbered in the thousands, if not tens of thousands; here, there were only hundreds. Perhaps _a_ thousand — she hadn’t managed to get an exact count — but not more than two.

Such thoughts contributed to her difficulty sleeping. It was hard to process everything during the day when she was constantly being bombarded by new things, so when she was finally able to stop and think, she couldn’t _stop_ thinking.

She must have managed at some point last night though, because Jazz's hand on her shoulder startled her from a fitful recharge some time later. It was still too dark to see more than her love's dimly lit optic band and the soft glow of the luminescent paint markings, but of course darkness was no barrier to Jazz or the other Polyhexians.

"’S'time," Jazz said softly.

"Time?" Prowl blinked, trying in vain to see anything other than shadowy outlines beyond the edges of her hollow. The flickering of the nearest fire was weaker than usual, like it had been banked, and for once there was no one beside it. "Time fer… th'harvest?"

"Aka — yes." Jazz moved back so Prowl could sit up. "Th'last kattumaram arrived a little while ago. Wasn’t rainin’ too hard, so they’re just about ready. We're settin' out soon as everyone's up."

"Well, I'm up," Prowl said, curiosity bringing alertness despite the lack of decent recharge. "Where do we need t'go? What’m I s’posed t'do?"

Jazz pulled her to her feet, leaving a pile of blankets and a disgruntled familiar in the sand hollow. "Yer gonna stay in th'kattumaram, help th'newlings git settled."

"Can do that," Prowl said, confident in her ability to move around on the kattumaram and not fall out of it. She could handle herself on the small boat, if not the boat itself. "What about ya?"

"I'll be diggin' ’em out," Jazz answered, taking Prowl's hand to lead her in the dark down to the riverbank. With a soft yowl of protest at being left behind, Sundance darted after them.

The trail down to the water was relatively short, but it took long enough to traverse for darkness to begin giving way to the first sliver of predawn light as they exited the jungle alongside the others making their way to their boats. Sand, wet from the rain and proximity to the river, stuck to their feet immediately, but it was the glowing optics in the water that caught Prowl’s attention. There were… a lot of them. Flickering like candles just above the surface, she could see _dozens_ of optics reflecting a red-orange light out across the water. Her footsteps slowed as she looked at them, wondering at their eerie stillness. "Jazz," she asked quietly, "what're those?"

"Koka," was Jazz's simple answer. "Come on," she said, tugging Prowl toward their kattumaram.

"Koka?" As in, the monsters that featured in almost as many stories as the Kokako? The mechanimals as long as a mech or femme was tall, or longer, with huge jaws and all the sharp teeth? That always appeared _alone?_ "But there's so many!"

"Yeah."

"Where'd they all come from?" They hadn't been here before, Prowl was sure of it! She clambered up into the kattumaram quickly, suddenly anxious about being in the water. "Why're they all floatin' out there?"

"Koka," Prowl recognized the inflection that meant Jazz was talking about a specific one this time, the precursor creature-god of the species, "called ’is kin. They start gatherin' soon as th'decision's made." Jazz tossed one oar to Prowl and pushed the boat into the water. Despite the splashes, the koka didn't react; in fact, they moved away from the boat to give it room. Still, Jazz didn't waste any time jumping up onto the deck, away from the danger of snapping teeth. "They're gonna follow us th'rest'a th'way."

Prowl heard other boats being swiftly pushed off into the water behind them. Sounded like everyone wanted to get underway quickly.

“Don’t like them,” Sundance hissed, equally unsettled by the patient, watchful optics in the water. Her plating bristled aggressively and she gave off a low, defensive yowl. Another priest-mage's spirit guide — one of the several species of small hound-like creatures native to the islands — growled menacingly along with her. Unbothered, the koka continued to give the boats a wide berth, gliding effortlessly out of their paths and into their wakes.

"Will they attack us?" Prowl nervously checked the water before sticking her oar into it, just in case. The last thing she wanted to do was hit one and make it mad! What if they changed their minds and decided to swarm?

"Not right now. Ain't us they want."

If not them, then what? Prowl didn't ask, focusing instead on the task of helping Jazz steer the kattumaram. She tried not to keep looking back at the glowing dots on the water behind them, but it was impossible not to. She could feel them watching even when she wasn't looking, a weight that built with each breath until she was sure they were right on top of them — but they never were. Every time she looked back, the red-orange optics were still a respectful distance away, patiently pacing them with hardly a ripple.

Definitely eerie.

They disappeared when the predawn light temporarily faded, sky turning grey in preparation for the dawn. Jazz and the other Polyhexians weren’t bothered, their strokes through the water sure, but Prowl could only see the barest outlines of the wide river, the shore, and the crystal jungle surrounding them. She couldn't fool herself into thinking the koka had gone though, and as the darkness lifted once more, true dawn finally arriving in a thin blaze of orange light, she saw the optics again.

She was so busy watching the koka she forgot to pay attention to where they were going. As a result, she only noticed the mouth of the huge black cave when it loomed up right ahead of them, spanning the entire river as it flowed out from the darkness. Crystals grew up and over and even a little ways inside the cave, and a curtain of rubbery weeds obscured the depths.

Movement overhead drew her attention as they paddled closer. Prowl looked up and recognized the outlines of hundreds, maybe even thousands of bats making their way home after a night of hunting. She knew Polyhexians ate the kelawar when they could catch them, but that wasn’t the reason for this journey, and so the bats were left to fly about unhindered.

Together the cluster of kattumaram paddled their way into the cave past the roosting colony. The screeching, echoing, flapping cacophony of so many bats was deafening and Prowl had to pull her oar up out of the water so that she wouldn't mess Jazz up in her disorientation.

"Can make a light now," Jazz said quietly once the colony was behind them. "Small ones."

Blinking, Prowl did notice that small lights were appearing on other boats. Other Polyhexian priest-mages making dim mage-lights.

And in those dim lights, the koka optics still glowed patiently.

Shaking off the lingering echoes, Prowl fished her spell components out of her bag and concentrated on casting a light of her own. Centered on her star-shell necklace, she tempered the brightness to keep it from being overwhelming. Sundance blinked up at her when she'd finished, then bumped her head against her knee supportively. Prowl scratched her ears and looked around to see what the light revealed.

The boats crowded together a bit in the cave, but the river was still wide enough for them to maneuver without binding up on each other. The waterway didn’t narrow, and the surface was smooth and peaceful, without even a single ripple that wasn't caused by someone's oar breaching the water. Dark, glassy ceiling and walls glimmered in most places, but in others the rock seemed to flow down the walls like some sort of liquid, frozen for eternity. A low mist rose up off of the water, shining with thin wisps of silver in the light as it wove around the small crystals that had formed at the edges of the water. It was a very strange shoreline, composed of what looked like yellow sulfur and— "Is that energon?" The bright pink crystals nestled among the yellow sure looked like it!

Jazz's only reply was a shrug.

It would be incredible if they were actually raw energon crystals. Prowl started to lean toward them, wanting to get a better look (and maybe even a sample?), but a soft meow at her side stopped her. "Those things are still in the water, you know," Sundance said pragmatically. Prowl immediately jerked back.

The mist thickened, and the cave grew warmer. The air became dense with moisture.

"How much farther?" Prowl asked, feeling around the side of the kattumaram with her oar for rocks. They weren’t moving very fast, but it was still better to avoid any outcroppings or unexpected shallow areas.

"We're almost there. Can't miss it," Jazz replied.

The air continued to thicken, growing warmer and wetter to the point it condensed and dripped off of their armor.

"Weeeeet," complained Sundance, vigorously shaking her head and sending droplets flying from her ears and whiskers.

"You'll live," Prowl assured her over Jazz’s soft chuckle. It never failed to amuse her, or the other islanders, for that matter, that a shipcat should have such an aversion to water.

The underground river came to an abrupt end in a shaft of light ahead of them. The roof of the cave had collapsed, letting the jungle sprawl down into the hole and out onto the huge rocks left by the cave-in. Water trickled down from above as well, and mist — steam! — hissed from the cold water as it mixed with the warmth of the cave.

"Oh…" Prowl made herself dizzy trying to look at everything at once. There were more energon crystals here, not just growing at the edge of the underground river, but also embedded in the walls. The early morning light streaming down set them all to sparkling, and the atmosphere felt thick not just with moisture, but with a kind of indescribable energy. She'd never seen anything like it before in her life, and it was stunning — the light, the colors, the rolling flow of the rocks and the water, all of it was strikingly beautiful. Almost magical. If their destination was unmistakable, then this had to be it. "Is… is this really th'hot spot?"

"Aka…" Jazz breathed. "Can see th'newlings," she said, pointing up to the wall of the cave.

_Up there?!_

Prowl had expected them to be up on the surface, for the islanders to anchor the boats over where the roof had collapsed and climb up those rocks to exit the cave wherever they were now. But no, when she followed Jazz’s finger, she could see a barely exposed femme growing in the wall itself, covered by the clear film of her development capsule where it was lodged in the rock, easily a dozen feet above the water.

While Prowl continued to wonder and marvel, Jazz maneuvered the boat over to the side of the cave, mirroring the other boats doing the same. One of the long hulls of the kattumaram bumped gently against the rock as they came to a stop. Scooping up the rope tied to the mast, looping it around her torso, and securing her digging knife in her teeth, Jazz leapt from the boat. She seemed to hang there in the air before landing against the wall of the cave, claws instantly digging into the solid rock for a firm hold. She quickly found an outcropping and tied the rope to it, ensuring the boat wouldn't float away.

Stay with the boat and get the newlings settled… Prowl's job seemed a lot less trivial now.

She heard the shouts and impacts of other mechs and femmes leaping from their own boats and clinging to the walls with their claws. Prowl looked around and spotted other newlings scattered across the cavern walls, some just barely exposed to the air. She couldn't imagine getting up to them and digging them out without falling from the slippery, mist-slicked rocks! But, as Jazz often bragged, she (and all the other Polyhexians starting to scale the walls) was an excellent climber.

Digging knives chipped away at the rock with sharp _ping ping ping_ sounds, and Prowl found herself pelted by sharp pebbles falling from where Jazz had climbed to start digging out the femme. Some of those pebbles had speckles or streaks of the pink maybe-energon in them and Prowl thought — a little hysterically — that she was getting her sample after all.

It seemed to take forever, but Jazz eventually dug out enough of the femme for her to be fully visible, and with a quick slash, cut open the clear film surrounding her. Liquid gushed out of the rock as the femme suddenly flailed with a surprised screech. Prowl heard Jazz _coo-ru_ softly to calm the femme as she somehow held onto both her and the slippery, slimy rock.

When the femme stilled, clinging to Jazz with newborn claws, she scrambled down to pass her off to Prowl. Quickly using her oar to push the kattumaram right up against the edge of the cave, Prowl stood to help the femme step down into the hull. "Hi," she said, knowing intellectually that newlings didn't understand speech yet, but feeling as though she should still say something. "Welcome to th'world."

The femme's optic band blinked off, then back on, then she shivered and started crying.

"Oh! Shh, no, it's okay!" Awkwardly, Prowl tried to comfort her, stroking her arms and patting her back as she guided her to sit down so she could wrap a blanket around her. She'd never quite worked out how to make the same sound Jazz did, but she did her best. "Yer okay."

Busy trying to quiet the crying femme, the splash behind her barely registered.

The screams that followed made her whip around in a panic.

A newling mech, still streaked with slime from his development capsule, had fallen in the water. He screamed and clawed, lashing out as four koka at least as big as he was ripped into his metal with their powerful, pointed jaws, tearing off chunks and staining the water nearby with the mech's fluids.

A bolt of mage-conjured fire lanced out from one of the boats, striking one of the koka. It twisted and went still, but that had no effect on the feeding frenzy except to attract more of the beasts to tear into their own kin.

"—rowl. Prowl!" Sharp claws in her thigh snapped Prowl out of the worst of her shock. She was shaking, she realized; shaking and clinging to the newling femme and instinctively trying to shield her from the sight where they'd both collapsed in the hull of the kattumaram.

"Thank you, Sundance," Prowl said, the words coming out in a strained whisper. _Ain't us they want,_ Jazz had said, and she hadn't asked what she meant.

Now she knew.

Another sharp, crystal-laced pebble bounced off her helm, and she looked up to see Jazz resolutely making her way to another newling. Prowl forced herself through a deep-vent cycle and stood again. She needed to be ready, to make sure when Jazz was successful that the next newling made it safely onto the boat.

A shout drew her attention across the cave to where Whistle was desperately holding onto a newling who was nevertheless slipping from his grasp. With a screech, the mech fell into the water. Prowl watched in horror as he sank down, then popped back up, flailing, to swim toward the nearest boat while the koka began to close in.

Whistle had already moved on, climbing to the next newling still embedded in the side of the cave.

More conjured fire and bolts of glowing green lanced out to defend the newling, succeeding mostly in turning the koka on each other, but one sharp-toothed beast made it to the newborn mech. With a yowl much like those Jazz made while possessed by her fishing cat spirit, the newling lashed out with his claws, instinctively tearing into the threat as the koka tried to snap its jaws around him.

"You leave him alone!" Prowl called on her own magic, sending a stinging ball of light arcing over the water to sizzle against the koka's back. If the others were attacking them, then so could she!

Ultimately she couldn't tell if she had killed the attacking koka, or if the newling had found a vital spot with his sharp, new claws, but either way it sank briefly beneath the water. Another submerged koka lunged up from the depths to tear into it while the newling scrambled into the waiting boat, helped up by the mech on board.

"Yes!" Prowl clung to the small victory in the face of the cold, hard reality around her. Given the precarious positions of the newlings in their capsules and the sheer number of koka in the water, it would be impossible to save everyone who slipped from the rocks — but she would do all she could to save as many as possible.

The near-boiling water frothed around the desperate struggles. Prowl cast spell after spell, giving every fallen newling she could see the best chance of survival she could. She wasn't always successful. Some survived, swimming and clawing mere seconds after being pulled from the rock, but others weren't aware enough, or strong enough, or were unlucky enough to be overwhelmed.

"Prowl!" Jazz called, and Prowl turned to see her scaling the rock with a strong, crying newling clinging to her armor hard enough to leave deep punctures in black and white plating that bled sluggishly. Jazz didn't seem to notice.

"Here." Prowl opened her arms to the mech, wincing as he shifted his grip to dig into her armor instead. Jazz offered a sharp-fanged grin and scrambled back up the side of the cave to retrieve the next. "Shh, shh, yer safe here," Prowl crooned, helping the newling down into the kattumaram next to the still-sniffling femme. "Just stay here on th'boat'n yer gonna be fine." Because the koka still weren't bothering the boats; not that they needed to, when waiting for the next fallen newling or spell-stunned koka was so much easier. "C'mon, just sit down'n be still, okay?"

"You're going to have to put some of them in the other hull," Sundance warned. "We're getting lopsided."

"We're not that lopsided," Prowl said, struggling to extricate herself safely from the clinging newling. "Not yet, anyway."

Tucking the two newlings together, Prowl brushed at the faint traces of energon on her plating. Oddly, it was that very visible proof of the damage Jazz had taken that helped a surety settle over her that the adults on the walls were not being careless in their task. Of course they were doing everything they could on their side of things; seeing Jazz take an injury to keep her precious newling safe prompted her to watch for the others being brought down to the boats and not just the ones falling into the water. For every one that fell, ten were safely retrieved, and as time went on, more and more of those who fell were making it to the boats and the adults there waiting to help them in. The koka were almost all busy with their feeding now, and hardly any of the fallen newlings were being immediately attacked.

It didn't mean they were safe, but as she cast another spell to defend a nearby newling from the lone koka who'd bothered to come after her, Prowl realized there was hope. She pulled that one into the kattumaram and settled her into the hull opposite the two others.

Eventually Jazz lost one of the newlings she was digging out to the water. Prowl heard her curse and looked up in time to see the mech slip from her grasp and curl into a ball before splashing down at the side of the cave.

He didn’t come back up.

“Did he hit a rock?” Sundance mewed sadly, leaning out over the side of the boat to look down into the water. “I bet he hit the rocks…”

“Prowl!”

Prowl looked up as Jazz’s voice rang down. Her bondmate was shaking her head, a sorrowful expression on her face.

“Stay in th’kattumaram,” Jazz said, and Prowl found she’d started to climb up over the side to jump into the water and go after the newling. He’d landed so close by… “Y’got a job t’do.”

Beside her, Sundance hissed and flattened her ears. The disturbance marking where the newling had fallen had grown, indicating a koka beneath the steaming surface. Prowl pulled back, realizing how foolish she’d almost been. None of the other adults were risking the water, and they were all much better swimmers than she.

With so much water and capsule slime, it was inevitable that at least one adult fell into the water as well, twisting to shelter the newling clinging to him from the impact. The newling struggled to the surface, paddling awkwardly to the nearest boat where Eclipse was beckoning for her, but the fallen adult didn’t reemerge. Prowl didn’t see what happened to him; Jazz called her a moment later to get another newling settled.

This time, along with a terrified mech, Jazz passed her a litter of kittens. How had she ever managed to climb with all of them?

“I’ll take care of them,” Sundance said immediately, pushing a blanket into a rough nest and meowing for her to set the kittens down so she could start fussing over them. Prowl was more than happy to let her take charge of them while she got the mech across the deck and over into the opposite hull. The femme sitting there shuffled up to his side immediately, and they clung to each other for comfort.

Taking a cue from Sundance, who was determinedly washing the tiny blind kittens, Prowl took a moment to grab a towel and start rubbing down one of the newlings to get some of the slime off. She made sure to rinse it over the side of the kattumaram facing the wall of the cave, not the feeding frenzy, and was happy to see that it seemed to be making a difference. The newlings slowly began to relax, their cries quieting as she continued to talk to and soothe them as she cleaned them up.

She didn’t have much room for spare thoughts, but she couldn’t help briefly wondering what harvesting was like in Praxus. Prowl couldn’t remember what the experience had been like for her, but surely it hadn’t been as precarious and terrifying as this!

Starting to feel numb, Prowl accepted a pair of puppies from Jazz and set them down next to the kittens for Sundance to care for, then turned her attention back to the wider cave. She was almost out of spells, and had to choose her targets more carefully, aiming only for those koka attacking newlings still active and strong enough to fight back and escape. The torrent of spells being flung from the other priest-mages was likewise slowing to a trickle.

The cave, the steam rising from the water’s surface, the walls glittering in the light from the jungle above, the jungle itself bursting into the darkness like the touch of Primus… It was still beautiful to look at. Magical.

And for all the death in the water, there was so much new _life_ filling the boats.

However, Jazz was starting to show signs of weariness too. She took longer each time to return to the kattumaram, not only because she was having to climb farther to reach the next capsule, but because she was moving more slowly as well. Prowl didn’t have any of the sort of spells that could bolster her, and she certainly couldn’t switch places with her like she saw some others starting to do. Surely they would have to stop soon? Even if Jazz didn’t reach the point of exhaustion where it was dangerous for her to keep climbing, they were going to run out of room on the kattumaram.

They stayed as the first boat pushed away from the walls and started paddling back into the dark. A second left shortly after it, unable to carry any more passengers. There were still so _many_ in the rocks! But when Jazz finally passed Prowl one last newling and dropped down to the deck with the anchoring rope instead of climbing back up, Prowl felt her spark swell. They had fifteen newlings clustered and clinging together, in both hulls and latched onto the mast on the deck, plus an assorted number of puppies and kittens. Jazz looked exhausted, but pleased with herself.

“Time t’go.”

“What happens t’th’rest?” Prowl asked, already reaching for her oar.

Jazz nodded to the darkness, where the river flowed into the cave. It took a moment to see what she was gesturing to, since Polyhexian mage-lights were so dim, but as the incoming boat moved into the light, Prowl saw it: first as a lighter shadow against the dark, then the dim mage-light… then suddenly in full color, gliding past the carnage of the feeding koka to slide into the opening left by one of the previously departed kattumaram.

“They’ll keep comin’,” Jazz said softly. “A trickle’a ’em, t’replace th’ones that leave, until sunset.”

So they worked in shifts, keeping the harvest going without pause just as they did everything else. “Do we need t’come back again?”

Jazz shook her head, pushing off against the rocks to send the boat drifting gently downstream, away from the hot spot. “Y’don’t, beautiful. Newlings’ll need ya t’take care’a ’em in camp. I can tag along with another kattumaram comin’ up, once I’ve found some fuel.”

“Oh.” Prowl didn’t want Jazz to come back without her… but as they left the worst of the bloodied waters behind them, the thought of returning so soon was too much to bear. “I’ll take good care’a ’em.”

“Know ya will.”

They passed — as Jazz said — a trickle of boats coming up through the cave on their way back. This time Prowl had much less attention to spare for the crystals and strange rock formations; instead she fussed over the newlings between paddling. One had wiggled away from the rest to curl herself up around the cluster of puppies…

She was not so busy she failed to notice the sudden drop in temperature as they moved further away from the hot spot, where the water became cool and still once again. The newlings noticed too, and while some of them only whimpered at the sudden chill, others reacted with panic. Prowl had to completely abandon her oar and focus on calming them down before anyone accidentally fell out of the kattumaram. Jazz didn’t help, but Prowl couldn’t blame her for keeping her attention on making sure they didn’t get snagged on the shore.

The kelawar colony was much quieter, with all its denizens attempting to recharge. Prowl still heard them shuffling and squeaking, but mostly she was just grateful for the literal light at the end of the tunnel.

It was really something, getting to see the newlings’ first reactions to the open world. They ran the gamut from huddling closer together, drawing back from the unknown, to the kind of curious joy Prowl herself felt when discovering something new. Once again she had to keep some of them from falling out of the boat, but this time it was their eagerness, not panic, getting them in trouble.

The puppies and kittens were much easier for Sundance to manage. Born deaf and blind, and too small to be able to see over the side of the kattumaram anyway, they stayed in their nest and balled together for warmth.

Prowl was exhausted by the time Jazz beached their kattumaram beside the others, both those just returned and those not yet set out. She coaxed the frightened newlings huddling together off the boat while Jazz herded the more eager ones up to the camp, which did encourage the more reluctant ones to follow. The one femme wouldn’t let go of the puppies, and Sundance was content to let her carry the newborn mechanimals.

The camp was a buzz of activity, with the newlings being herded toward the center. The promise of comfort and fuel kept them together, for now.

There were already so many… three boatfulls. Over forty newborn Polyhexians.

“Wow.” Prowl stood still for a moment, just taking it all in. She was feeling so many different things, she didn’t think she could put any of them into words.

“Sit fer a bit,” Jazz cooed softly as she padded back to where Prowl was standing, leaving the newlings in the care of the other villagers. She reached out, putting her hand on Prowl’s arm, then drew her fully into an embrace. “Sit, beautiful.”

“It’s okay?” Prowl wasn’t even sure why that was what she asked, leaning into Jazz before bringing her arms up to cling like one of the newlings herself.

“It’s okay.” Jazz pulled her down so that they could cuddle together in the sand. “There’s plenty more t’do, and we’ll do it, but we need t’recover first. Means more’n a bowl a chuno’n hoppers fer ya.”

“Won’t be able t’do much more magic this sunrise,” Prowl said. “I used it all, tryin’ ta…”

“Y’did good.” Jazz nuzzled her. “Y’did good. Lookit ’em! They’re alive now.”

“They are, aren’t they?” Prowl looked up at them, smiling in spite of herself. “An’ I helped.”

“Did!”

It lifted her spark, knowing that she had made a difference. Jazz hadn’t just brought her along to humor her, she’d been relying on her, and Prowl had lived up to the job despite having had no idea what she was in for. “I’m glad ya didn’t fall,” she said, turning back to Jazz to mumble into her plating. “’M really glad y’didn’t fall.”

Jazz _prrled,_ then preened. “I am very good at climbin’.”

“Are!” And here, away from all the people in Praxus who would judge her for climbing things she shouldn’t, Prowl was unequivocally proud of her mate for her skill. “I wouldn’t’a made it a foot off th’ground.”

“You’ll learn,” Jazz said confidently, nuzzling her again.

Yes. Yes, she would. But right now, Jazz was the only one who needed to be able to climb. “Should eat somethin’,” Prowl said, though she didn’t let go of Jazz. “Do ya need bandages on any’a those scratches?”

“Not yet.” Jazz looked over Prowl’s collection of scratches and punctures, mostly from the newlings’ claws. “Should git y’bandaged up though.”

“Can bandage each other,” Prowl argued, even though she knew Jazz’s ability to recover from minor injuries (and even major ones) was much better than her own.

“Sure. Can do that.” Jazz let go of Prowl to scramble to her feet, then reached down to help her up.

They weren’t the only ones to take advantage of the weed-bandages that had been collected en masse over the last several cycles. A sort of rudimentary first aid station had been set up with all the supplies, and most of the mechs and femmes returning from the hot spot were making use of it.

“An’ here I thought we were bringin’ in too many’n they’d start t’rot,” Prowl said, no longer worried that the weeds would go to waste.

Jazz chuckled. “Know better’n that.”

Prowl had gotten used to the way Jazz gently and thoroughly cleaned each tiny scratch and bandaged them alongside the deeper punctures, and took extra comfort in the attention this time. Jazz cooed and worried over each tiny injury, concerned that Prowl wouldn’t heal right and they’d have to go back to Praxus.

She needn’t have worried, not over this batch anyway. Deep as some of the punctures were, they were still small. The newlings hadn’t actually been trying to harm her.

Someone pressed a bowl of thick, paste-like hupa made of who-knew-what into her hands. She still hesitated to dip her fingers in to scoop the stuff into her mouth where others could see, but when she did she found it sweet and rich. Kelapa, fish, and chuno, then, with only a little bit of miso.

One of the other priest-mages, or a group of them, had enticed some of the more active newlings into playing with a hollowed out kelapa shell ball. There didn’t seem to be any rules, but since they couldn’t speak yet, Prowl supposed it would do for keeping them all here instead of wandering out into the jungle.

Jazz disappeared briefly once she’d finished bandaging Prowl, returning with her own bowl of paste. “Eat,” she encouraged when she saw Prowl being shy with hers.

“Am eating,” Prowl said, proving it by licking another dollop off her fingers. “’S good.”

Jazz smiled. “Good.” She dug into her own unselfconsciously. She was probably hungrier than Prowl was.

Bowls were being taken to the newlings, some of whom watched the adults for a bit before copying them, while others dug straight into the fuel with wild, messy abandon. One even tried copying Sundance, who had returned carrying a glitchmouse and was ripping into it hungrily.

The mechanimals were being fed too, Prowl noticed, the puppies and kittens being carefully nursed with energon-soaked rags of sailcloth. Some of the newlings were copying that too, and catching on quickly. The one from their boat was doing an excellent job with the puppies, cradling them delicately and making happy cooing noises over them as they ate.

“Tell Jazz the kittens are off the boat,” Sundance said when she finished her glitchmouse, fastidiously licking her whiskers.

“Thank you for carrying them,” Prowl said, stroking her plating. She must have moved them one at a time before slipping off to hunt. “Was that cave where you were born?”

“No,” the spirit in metal form meowed with confidence, licking her paw and cleaning her ears with it; several newlings copied her, wiping their hands over their audio horns. _“I_ was born near Praxus. That hot spot is now fully wild, but sometimes shipcat and hound sparks still settle there.”

“I hadn’t realized there would be mechanimals mixed in with the newlings,” Prowl admitted. It was a nice symmetry though, to grow side by side next to each other the way they lived. “There was a lot I didn’t expect.”

“Wha’sa matter?” Jazz asked gently.

“Hmm? Oh.” Prowl shook her head and sat up straighter. “’M fine. Just… ’s a lot t’think about.”

“Aka. I didn’t realize it’d be all new t’ya.” Jazz ran her hand down Prowl’s spinal struts, between her doorwings. “Guess y’don’t remember yer own harvest?”

“No. Is that strange?” Prowl had never really thought about it before. Her first memories were of her lessons, once she’d picked up enough ability with language to put her thoughts into words. Once again she leaned into Jazz’s touch. “I don’t really know what harvests’re like in Praxus.”

“Most’a us remember a bit, at least,” Jazz answered quietly with another reassuring caress. “Rico’n me… we dropped inta th’water’n had t’swim.”

Prowl shivered. “Guess it would be kinda hard t’hold onta twins, huh?”

“Aka. ’S’hard t’hold onta just one, an’ usually they’ll grab each other, ’stead’a th’digger. Don’t mean none’a ’em make it t’the kattumaram without fallin’, but a lotta ’em do fall.”

“But not everyone that falls dies,” Prowl said, finding the words hard and easy to say in equal measures. “I was real glad when I saw some of ’em makin’ it. Thought at first there’d be no way t’escape so many koka.” And she felt a bit silly now, for not having figured out sooner why they’d been following them. Even if there was no way she could have known what the hot spot would be like, it should have been obvious once they arrived how dangerous it would be! Instead she’d been caught completely off-guard.

“’S more newlings than koka, an’ we fight back.” Jazz gently turned Prowl’s head and kissed her. “Focus on th’ones who make it, beautiful. They’re th’ones who need ya now. Th’rest’re stars.”

Stars… It was a comforting thought to Prowl. “Thanks.” She kissed Jazz back. “But I still need t’take care’a ya first so ya can go climb again’n bring me more t’look after.”

“Sure.”

Getting Jazz patched up didn’t take all that long. Prowl drew it out as much as she could, more to give Jazz a chance to rest than anything else. Her scratches were predominantly shallow, and the punctures, while deep, were tiny and had already stopped leaking on their own. But it felt good to make sure there weren’t any worse injuries hiding somewhere, to reaffirm with her own hands that Jazz was alive and whole.

It was well timed. As Prowl finished up patching Jazz, cleaning the scratches and covering them with the rubbery weeds that would prevent rust from forming or infecting the wounds, two more boats landed and the newlings were herded into the camp.

“Come find me later?” Prowl trailed her hand down Jazz’s arm, then threaded their fingers together. “Please?”

“Will,” Jazz promised with a squeeze of their hands.

“’Kay.” With another bracing vent cycle, Prowl let go. She could do this. Taking care of the newlings would be a good way to stay busy and not succumb to worry for Jazz or any of the other too-big emotions threatening to overwhelm her.

She quickly fell into a sort of rhythm: choose a newling, get them seated, hand them a bowl of hupa, encourage them to eat, check them for injuries… The cleaner ones tended to have more gouges or scratches, and while most of them were fine with a few simple weed patches, there were some who were worse off. Prowl couldn’t do more for those than hand them off to someone with more first aid experience and go back to taking care of the rest.

Sundance rubbed against her leg during a brief lull between new arrivals. Prowl looked down. She looked worried. “It’s alright,” Prowl said, kneeling down to pick her up. She wound up sitting in the sand cradling her to her chest, unable to stand back up. “It’ll be alright.”

“Love you,” the cat meowed. “That was scary.”

“Was.” Very scary. “Primus, I hope it’s not like this in Praxus.”

“I don’t know,” Sundance admitted. “We never looked. I know where I was dug up, but that’s a wild hot spot.”

“Which is different.” Probably. The only knowledge Prowl had about newlings started with the aptitude tests. She’d learned how to read the results, how to choose promising individuals for different positions, but she had no idea how new mechs and femmes got there from the ground. “I wish there was someone I could ask.”

“I could—”

“Prowl! There y’are.” Prowl looked up to see Chromia jogging toward her. “Frag. Have y’eaten?” She crouched and ran her fingers over Prowl’s chevron gently. “Y’look as life-struck as th’newlings.”

“I do? I… did?” Had she eaten? “Yeah. When we first got back.” How long ago was that?

“Come on.” Chromia wrapped her arms around Prowl and pulled her up out of the sand. “Let’s git ya a bowl an’ then we need ya t’take somma th’newlings t’th’kelapa grove.”

“Can do that.” She could definitely do that. The kelapa grove was a little bit closer to camp than the beach, but in the opposite direction. There wasn’t much of a path to get there, but all the trekking back and forth had started to wear a track through the ohe — enough of one that she wouldn’t get lost on the way like she had the first time. “Is anyone already there? What’m I supposed t’do with ’em when we get there?”

“Keep too many’a ’em from wanderin’ off,” Chromia said wryly. Pulling Prowl over to one of the pots of hupa, she filled one of the simple, unworked kelapa shell bowls the newlings were using by dipping it in and scooping some of the fuel into it. Then she handed it to Prowl, messy exterior and all. “These’re somma th’more inquisitive ones who ain’t interested in th’ball, so they’ll do a lotta pokin’ things’n climbin’. Maybe tell ’em stories.”

Prowl’s fingers curled around the bowl, even though it meant getting some of the hupa on her hands. “Can they understand stories?”

Chromia shrugged. “Does it matter? Even if all they’re doin’ is listenin’ t’yer rhythm, they’d still be listenin’.”

“Ah. ’Kay.” If the goal was just to keep them occupied, she could try both the Polyhexian stories she’d learned, and ones from Praxus.

“Eat first.”

Right. Prowl looked at the contents of the bowl. It was too thick to drink… but her fingers were already a mess, and Chromia wouldn’t care. She dug in, scooping up pieces of softened chuno and fish bits. Idly she noted that the flavor was slightly different, spicier, than the pot she and Jazz had pulled from.

Chromia stroked her chevron again when she finished. “There ya go. C’mon, ’s this crowd here,” she said, taking the empty bowl and waving with it to a loose cluster of newlings. “Y’good?”

“I’m good.”

The other priest-mage stroked her one last time, then left her with the one…two… four, five, six… seven, was that all, no, there was number eight… eight newlings. _Eight?_ How was she going to keep track of _eight_ by herself? Looking back, Prowl saw that there were only three adults supervising the games of kick-the-ball in the center of the clearing, which collectively had more newlings than she could easily count.

“There’s so many,” Sundance meowed, scanning the crowd from Prowl’s shoulder. “Too many.”

“We’ll manage somehow.” The Polyhexians did this every harvest season, right? They must know what they were doing, even if it was becoming obvious that the newlings didn’t just outnumber the adults, they _vastly_ outnumbered them. “Come on. Let’s get these eight to the kelapa grove.”

It was a chore. These were, as Chromia had said, some of the more active and inquisitive newlings. That meant they weren’t particularly inclined to stay on the path. They tended to get distracted by… by… Prowl wasn’t even sure what sometimes. A line of tiny hexbugs crawling on the ground. The glint of light on a certain kind of crystal. _Sand._ They wandered off out into the underbrush at the slightest provocation, chasing sounds or scents Prowl couldn’t even perceive. And it seemed all of it, _all of it,_ went into their mouths to taste, test, or chew on.

It was practically a miracle that Prowl made it to the grove with all eight newlings.

“Think they’ll stay interested in the kelapa?” Sundance asked when the lot of them started examining the trees and fallen seed crystals. Two were already trying to climb the trees, and several others were tasting them.

“Let’s hope so,” Prowl sighed. She didn’t expect they would for long though. “Wish I knew how long we’re supposed to keep them here.”

“Jazz will come find us when she gets back.”

Yes, she would. She had promised. “Alright then. We’ll try to keep them interested in the kelapa, and if they start to wander I can start telling— oh!” Prowl rushed over to the newling mech who’d just fallen from the tree he’d been climbing. “Are ya okay?”

The newling didn’t answer in words, but he sobbed and cried and generally let Prowl fuss over him before getting distracted and escaping out of her hold like a greased eel to scamper over to one of the femmes, who was exclaiming over something excitedly. Prowl had been trying to figure out if he was injured and if she needed to try and get one of the healer priest-mages to take care of him, but…

“If he can move that well he’s fine,” Sundance declared. Prowl just had to nod and let it go at that, because a pair of newlings were trying to leave the grove and she didn’t want to let them get out of sight.

After a lot more running back and forth, she finally had everyone together again. “Here — watch,” she said, rolling one of the loose kelapa over and grabbing a rock. “Y’can open ’em, see?”

She realized she had an issue when she went to grab her knife. She only had one, and already several of the newlings watching had grabbed kelapa and rocks of their own. Even if she’d had enough of the hole-poking knives, she wasn’t sure she’d want to give them to them!

“Just keep going,” was Sundance’s advice. “It’s better than them wandering off!”

“But they’ll waste the liquid.”

“Chromia said keeping them from wandering off was the most important thing,” the cat said pragmatically. “The kelapa will be more interesting if they have food to find and messes to make, right?”

Right. _Right._

“’Kay. Here’s how ya do it,” she said, talking through the process even though they couldn’t understand and didn’t have the same tools. “Y’feel around th’kelapa t’find th’right point first, like this,” she demonstrated, “then ya brace it so it won’t slip,” somehow she expected they’d all botch that part and send the things shooting off everywhere before they figured it out, “line up th’knife, and—” _thwack!_ “—hit it with th’rock t’drill through th’shell. Gotta do it in one strike so it doesn’t split, and then,” she brought the kelapa up to her lips, “y’can drink it.”

And it tasted so good… Prowl gave herself a moment to enjoy the sweet, potent liquid, then looked around to make sure she still had everyone. One, two, three… A couple were already starting to wander, looking around for more kelapa. “Hey, c’mere, there’s another thing y’can do with it,” Prowl called to them. “Watch.” Quickly knocking back the rest of the liquid to empty her shell, she set it back down and felt along the exterior again before striking it once more to split it. “See? There’s crystals inside.”

Almost immediately, the _krrsssht!_ sounds of breaking kelapa shells echoed messily through the clearing from those newlings who already had their own kelapa and rocks. They hadn’t managed to open them before, but _now_ liquid and crystals almost exploded out of the brown, fiber-covered shells, much to their delight.

“Aka!” one of them even yelled, licking the liquid (and sticking sand) from his hands, while others crowded around to taste as well.

“Right! Kinda like that,” Prowl said, giggling a little in spite of herself. They were all so excited, and the looks on their faces at the taste were fantastic. Of course, it was only going to be a matter of time before someone tried eating the crystals instead of licking the liquid, and that flavor wasn’t anywhere near as nice. “Sorry I can’t warn ya, but y’won’t understand me sayin’ they’re chalky.”

One newling, sticky and sandy, started climbing up to get another kelapa from the trees, while another used her claws to tear the broken shell into smaller pieces, revealing the last dregs of the liquid inside.

Seeing _that,_ a third scampered over, growling and hissing and rattling his armor aggressively. With a squeak, his victim rolled out of the way of the mock-charge, spilling the liquid all over the place as they fought.

“Hey now, there’s no need ta— ow!” Prowl pulled her hand back, arm smarting from the glancing scratch the newling’s claws had left on her plating. “That wasn’t very nice.”

“Web spell?” Sundance suggested as the two newlings continued to wrestle over the increasingly broken kelapa.

“Good idea.” She hadn’t been able to use it against the koka, but here she could anchor the web to the ground and trap the two newlings until they calmed down. It was the last of her memorized spells, but she didn’t hesitate to cast it, letting the magic and the webbing fly with an incantation and a sharp “Stop it!”

The sudden appearance of the thick, sticky strands didn’t bring an immediate end to their snarling at each other, but the fight was effectively halted as they struggled against their new bindings. Prowl breathed a sigh of relief that neither of them were as strong or focused as Jazz and Ricochet were when caught in the same spell. She could barely hold those two for a few nanokliks! The newlings, despite being the same size, had none of the older warriors’ drive and will.

The sudden magical appearance of Something New caught and held the attention of most of the other newlings as a side benefit. They dropped what they were doing to come over and investigate… mostly resulting in getting caught themselves.

“Well, that’s what happens when ya poke somethin’ sticky!” Prowl smiled at her (mostly) captive audience. If they were interested in the magic, she did have one other thing she could do. Prestidigitation didn’t just remove water and sand; when she’d initially learned it, it had been for the purpose of creating minor illusions, and while her more powerful spells were now all spent, she could still manage the simple cantrip.

“Lemme tell ya a story.”

Picking a tale at random, Prowl used her magic to illustrate the story as she spoke. Nothing complicated, just small figments of light and color to represent the characters and the occasional sound for emphasis, but it allowed her to keep changing things up. That, in turn, kept the newlings’ attention, even after the web spell wore off and melted away.

The one’s use of “aka” — Polyhexian for “yes” — made her think there must be something about the language they knew already, so Prowl stuck with it. A lot of the Polyhexian stories she knew were about Kokako, that progenitor animal-god of the smart, curious, and destructive birds, so she wound up telling the story about how Kokako Found Food: a fairly simple story she’d heard a few cycles ago that basically amounted to a list of edible crystals, how to identify them, and what they tasted like.

Of course, the genre of Kokako stories was that he got himself into and out of trouble, so the list included the bird trying some things that were decidedly not edible and suffering the consequences.

“Gonna have ta repeat this one for ya when y’can understand it better,” Prowl said when she reached the end. “Y’really can’t just go puttin’ anything in yer mouths.”

As if to demonstrate her point, one of the newlings licked the mech next to her, cleaning sticky-dried kelapa and sand from his plating. He shivered and gave a squeak that told Prowl the femme had hit an erogenous spot.

“I’m not sure y’should—”

“It’ll keep them busy, won’t it?” Sundance’s tail lashed in the sand. “Not wandering around is good, especially since I can only see seven newlings right now.”

“What?!” One, two… Prowl’s headcount came up one short too. “Oh no, where did the eighth one go?”

Now a lot less worried about the two newlings starting to explore each others’ frames than the missing one, Prowl created an amorphous fountain of colors and lights in the center of the kelapa grove. It was a use of the prestidigitation spell that would quickly tire her if it went on too long, but it kept everyone close and interested while she searched the edges of the grove—

“Don’t forget the climbing!”

—right; the edges of the grove _and_ the crystal trees for signs of the wandering newling.

“Please just be up a tree,” Prowl muttered, walking quickly. “Can’t believe I’m actually hoping to hear…” She stopped, listening. It wasn’t the _thud!_ of a newling falling out of a tree, but a soft whimper. Following it turned up the newling, curled up and crying quietly in a patch of thick razorgrass. “Oh no, what happened?”

Sundance hissed. Prowl froze in her tracks. “Something in the grass?”

“There!” Something slithered through the razorgrass just ahead of them. A cryosnake!

Oh no. Some cryosnakes were poisonous!

With a growl, Sundance dashed forward and pounced on the thing, and Prowl rushed over to the newling. “Lemme see th’bite,” she murmured, coaxing the crying newling into opening up and letting her see. Falling into Praxan, she murmured several prayers. Jazz had taught her how to tell the difference between a poisonous cryosnake and a nonpoisonous one by its bite. If it had two large, deep holes for fangs there was really nothing she could do except go back to camp for one of the other priest-mages to deal with it…

Prowl let out an explosive breath. “Yer gonna be okay,” she soothed, seeing the U-shaped pattern of small punctures left behind by a nonpoisonous cryosnake. “Yer gonna be okay.” She wasn’t sure she could have dealt with losing one after seeing so many die during the harvest. “Lemme just…” She didn’t have any fresh bandages, but Jazz had, as she always did, wrapped her small wounds very well. Prowl unwound the bandage weeds from one of her own wounds and tore off the part where she’d bled on it.

Now the newling was more fascinated by her actions than the snakebite. “Hurt,” he whined, but let Prowl work.

She wished she could summon water, so she could clean out the wound, but Sundance had said that was a spell she couldn’t learn because it tapped into something other than her own arcane power. Prowl hadn’t fully understood the explanation, but in any case it meant all she could do was try to wipe away the energon and sand with one of the sailcloths she usually used to make sacks before wrapping the wound in weeds.

“Leave ’em on, ’kay?” she said when she was done, stroking his plating soothingly. “It’ll hurt fer a bit, but it’ll get better.”

“’Kay,” he said.

Maybe he was just repeating her, maybe he actually knew what he was saying. It sounded more like the latter than the former, which meant maybe he really would leave the bandages alone. Prowl hugged him, then gently urged him to his feet. “Let’s get back t’th’others.”

“’Kay.”

The others had, of course, not stayed entranced by the (admittedly shaky) prestidigitation spell. The two who had started exploring each others’ frames before were now outright interfacing in the sand (thankfully with no more than a sliver of sparklight showing!), while three others were up in various crystal trees. One had fallen asleep.

The only one still near the prestidigitation fountain, sitting quietly, was upon closer inspection _much_ more concerned with a tiny flame he had cupped in his hand.

Cancelling her spell, Prowl settled the injured newling with some of the kelapa shards lying around and turned to the one somehow doing _magic_ before he’d even learned to talk. “How’re ya doin’ that?” It shouldn’t be possible! There was no one here to teach him the spell!

Looking up at her, he grinned, showing off his teeth. His optic band briefly flashed with flame while his tiny fire turned into a puff of colored smoke that looked a _little_ like her illusory fountain of color. He giggled and scooted closer to her, and _question/pride_ seeped into his EM field. “Did good?”

Good? “That’s amazin’,” Prowl said, still struggling to believe what she’d just seen. And heard! Innate ability was one thing, but they were picking up Polyhexian faster than she’d expected. Not that she had anything concrete to actually base any expectations on. “Feel like I’m learnin’ from ya ’s much as yer all learnin’ from me.”

He giggled again and, with a complicated flick of his hands, summoned a slightly larger fire which he reached out to hold, then set on the ground so that it caught — for real, without magic — on some razorgrass.

“Oh!” That was both fantastic and problematic. Thanks to all the rain the grass was wet and burned slowly, but it would spread if they didn’t put it out! “Fires need t’stay contained,” she said, quickly beating out the burning patch of grass. “Set up a place where it’ll just burn what ya feed it.”

That turned into an impromptu lesson in clearing a fire pit, which pulled in three of the other newlings to watch. Prowl made sure the area she cleared was relatively large compared to the pit in the center, in an effort to keep things under control.

“’Kay, _now_ y’have a safe place t’put th’fire,” she said, tearing up some of the grass and setting it in the middle of the pit. “Go ahead.”

Giggling, the mech reached out and cupped his hands and fire ignited in them. Watching it more closely, Prowl thought it might be a variant of the produce flame spell, which she didn’t routinely memorize because its only use was to, well, make fires that were only magical until they were put down and allowed to burn on their own, or put out. This time he chose to put it down in the firepit Prowl had built for him, and happily fed it with the gathered razorgrass.

“Looks like yer doin’ well,” Jazz’s voice called softly from behind.

“Jazz!” Prowl sagged with relief and no small amount of exhaustion now that she wasn’t the only adult in the grove. “I tried t’keep track’a everyone but that one got bitten by a maoa an’ they were fallin’ outta trees an’ this one’s startin’ fires an’—”

“Shhh.” Jazz stepped close and gave her a brief hug. She kept a lot of her attention on the newlings around them, making a sharp bark when one tried to use the distraction of their caretaker to wander off. Immediately the newling dropped into a contrite crouch. “How many’d ya start with?”

“Eight.” Oh, Primus, were there still eight of them? One, two, three… Oh _thank Primus!_ They were all here! She’d been worried for a nanoklik when she couldn’t find the last one, until she spotted her laying with-and-behind the one sleeping in the sand, also asleep, under Sundance’s watchful optics.

“Doin’ really good,” Jazz praised. Her gaze fell on the spell caster, still entranced with his firepit. “Said ’e was startin’ fires?”

“Yeah. Came back from bandagin’ that one,” Prowl pointed to the injured newling, currently gnawing on a crystal-encrusted piece of kelapa shell, “an’ found ’im holdin’ mage-fire in ’is hands. How’s ’e _doin’_ that already?”

“One’a Keahi’s Hounds,” Jazz said. “Should probly git ’im t’one’a ’is own before ’e burns th’forest down. Ready t’herd ’em back?”

She said it so casually… Prowl shook her head, not even wanting to contemplate the entire forest on fire. “Yeah. Ready t’collapse, just about,” she admitted.

Jazz released her, and together they got all the newlings back to the camp, which was louder and busier than Prowl had ever seen it. She finally saw what everyone had meant when they’d said that the newlings would recharge “wherever”. Everywhere she looked, there were small groups of them passed out on top of each other; in haphazard piles in the sand, in tree branches, tucked out of the way or sprawled out on well-tread paths… No one seemed to care, too busy herding and entertaining the ones who were still awake, or too tired to do anything but pass out themselves.

Prowl was definitely in the latter category. She was tired enough to sleep through even this level of noise and activity, at least for a while, but at the same time the idea of being alone frightened her. “…Can I sleep with ya?” she asked Jazz, hugging her arms around her torso. “Please?”

Jazz hesitated, visibly torn. Then she gritted her teeth, looking frustrated. “I’ll sleep with ya?” she offered, making some compromise Prowl didn’t have the cultural context to understand.

“If it’s okay,” Prowl said, not wanting to get either of them in trouble. “Just don’t wanna be alone. Don’t care where I’m sleepin’, I just wanna be with ya.”

“’Kay.” Jazz stroked her soothingly. “Can do that.”

Prowl led the way over to her sleeping hollow, only to find it currently occupied by a pair of newlings. “Well. That’s a problem.”

“Y’said y’didn’t wanna be alone,” Jazz laughed. “Looks like th’gods answered.”

When she put it that way… “Ain’t properly big enough fer four, but I don’t mind sharin’ with ’em.”

Jazz beamed. Crawling down into the hollow, she nudged the two newlings until they rearranged themselves to make a little bit of room, which she gestured for Prowl and Sundance to get into. It was a tight fit — somehow there was a puppy in with them too — but with a bit more shuffling they all found a comfortable way to pile up together. Prowl was laying more on one of the newlings and Jazz than on the ground, but that was fine. Having the warmth of their frames, the gentle hum of _life_ around her, eased the grief still lingering in her spark.

“Thanks,” she whispered, clinging to Jazz.

“Always,” Jazz promised. “Sleep, beautiful.”

It was the fastest Prowl had dropped into recharge since arriving in Polyhex.

.

.

.

In the cycles following the Harvest, Prowl heard more Kokako stories than she’d ever imagined could exist. By the time she woke up the first cycle, most, if not all, of the newlings had been able to speak and understand Polyhexian, which was fascinating on its own. The adults were busy using the progenitor god of mischievous birds as an object lesson in everything from not putting strange things in their mouths, to what predators to avoid, to why it was a bad idea to jump off of cliffs.

It seemed very, very strange to her at first that they were focusing on _these_ stories. They were brutal, gory, upsetting stories. She, in a frustrated moment of brilliance, answered her own question of _whyyyy_ by referring to the Kokako as the “god of dumb ways to die” in one of her rants about it in her journal. The throwaway phrase proved to be more apt than she’d realized when she wrote it, because, as it turned out, the newlings quickly started finding plenty of dumb ways to die themselves over the next few cycles.

At first it hadn’t been obvious. The camp was so busy and crowded it was incredibly difficult to keep track of all the newlings, which made noticing when one went missing all but impossible. Eventually, however, as she got to know more of them, it became inescapably clear that not everyone who went out into the jungle to explore came back.

“Happens,” had been Chromia’s answer when Prowl asked about it. She hadn’t seen one of the pair that had taken to recharging in or near her hollow for a full cycle, but the other priest-mage had been entirely unconcerned. “Lotta dangerous stuff out there.”

Her simple, straightforward acceptance that the missing newling was probably dead and lack of any interest in going after her had struck Prowl as incredibly callous, and she’d been very upset. Everyone’s confusion about _why_ she was upset had only made her more distraught, and in the end she’d wound up hiding in the kattumaram with Sundance, crying.

Jazz found her there. She didn’t try to say anything; she just wrapped her arms around her and held her close.

Their lives had only just begun…

That breakdown had been a few cycles ago. Prowl had cried herself out in her mate’s arms, falling into an almost numb sleep from which she woke still hurting but no longer hysterical. Emotionally it still upset her more than anyone else when a newling went missing, but from a purely intellectual standpoint she’d been forced to concede the reality: there were just too many newlings for the number of adults on the island, and the island was dangerous. Going out to look for one would mean leaving seven, ten, fifteen unsupervised and in peril. Prowl was as helpless to stop them as anyone else — more so, she realized, because she didn’t know the object-lesson stories either. She didn’t know what was dangerous any more than they did.

And food — feeding them all — was a constant chore. Between the adults’ expert food-finding and the newlings’ clumsy attempts, everything even remotely close to the camp was found, crushed, or scared away, within a decacycle. They all had to range farther and farther out into the jungle to bring back enough fuel for everyone, a time consuming venture that only further reduced how many adults were available to supervise the frustratingly innocent and curious newlings.

They did make an effort though, to look after and instruct the ones they could. It was as good an opportunity to learn about being Polyhexian as Jazz had promised, and Prowl listened as raptly as all of the newlings when a group of twenty or so were taken out to food-find on a rocky shore plentiful in midye and other creatures that lived in the pools left behind by the tides. The senior priest-mage, an elder mech with paua shell inlays in his armor that gleamed in the sun, gathered them close and told stories about Kokako getting caught in the tide, so focused on pursuing his prey in the rocks he forgot to watch for the waves. He told them about rip currents, and rockfalls, and all the poisonous little things that lived in the pools… Then he set them all loose to find what they could, staying nearby to answer questions while he went about food-finding himself.

Prowl didn’t see how many newlings succumbed to the dangers they’d been warned of anyway, because she herself got caught by the incoming tide. She barely managed to climb an outcrop of rock out of the waves’ reach when she realized her mistake, and spent the next several joors, at least half a dozen sunmarks, trapped there. The waters were too rough to attempt swimming back to shore; she’d be dashed against the rocks, and so had to stay and wait for the tide to recede. Sundance had been frantic when she’d finally made it back, but while Jazz had once again used a hug to check her for injuries, her only comment had been a perfectly calm, “An’ now ya know better.”

There was, as Chromia had said, nothing quite like experience as a teacher.

The newlings all learned fast. From the stories, from trial and error, and even from watching others’ mistakes. They learned faster than she did, even. She was astonished constantly by how well they could swim and climb and run. Prowl, with her head start, was quickly surpassed.

“Cuz y’don’t ever fall in th’river,” Jazz said with amusement when she mentioned it.

“Cuz I know better,” Prowl said, but she could see Jazz’s point. Lack of practice was contributing to her lack of progress, but she didn’t want to get hurt!

“If y’never find th’branches that’ll break, y’won’t ever find all’a th’ones that’ll hold,” Jazz said philosophically.

“Sayin’ I don’t take enough risks then?”

Jazz shrugged. “Sayin’ I’ve watched y’climb, beautiful. Y’will learn like that, but not as fast as y’would if y’were just a little less cautious. Caution _ain’t_ a bad thing, but too much’d git us all killed as sure as recklessness.”

Prowl thought about that. “How so?” she asked, curious what ways Jazz meant. She could think of a couple of ways that might be the case, but she was sure she wasn’t thinking of all of them. There were times when making a bad decision was still better than doing nothing at all.

“Come on,” Jazz beckoned and headed away from the camp instead of answering. Prowl hesitated, then followed.

Where were they going? Jazz didn’t say, but she kept going, leading them deeper and deeper into the island. The land sloped increasingly upward under their feet, until they reached a part of the forest that hadn’t been trampled by Polyhexian feet and wheels yet, then went a little further still.

“There’s supposed t’be dragons on Harvest Island,” Jazz said softly, pacing around until she found the perfect crystal tree. “’S’why no one comes too far inland if they can help it. Here.” She didn’t hesitate to reach up and climb the tree she’d chosen.

“Supposed t’be dragons?” Prowl followed her, moving more slowly but still managing to get to the forked branch where Jazz had stopped.

“Ain’t no one’s seen a dragon on Harvest fer… a long time,” Jazz said plainly. “Other places, other lands, but not here. Look though.” She gestured out around them.

Jazz had chosen a spot above the ever-present canopy of crystal cover. Prowl looked, and her breath caught in her vents. So much water! She could see the sea spreading out beyond the island, all the way out to the horizon.

“Somma our stories say we were dragons once,” Jazz said softly, cuddling up against Prowl. “We all came from th’same hot spot, th’same sparks. Harvest Island’s th’biggest’a th’islands, but ’s small fer’a dragon, much less a people’a dragons. Wasn’t enough space when more started bein’ born from th’hot spot.”

“I’ll believe that,” Prowl said, one hand still on the tree trunk while the other held onto Jazz. The island already felt crowded with the newlings as it was. If they were all even bigger, more mobile, taking up more space, and needing even more fuel to keep them going, it would be a nightmare.

“Can y’see th’nearest island?” Jazz asked, a little out of nowhere. “’S’over there,” she said helpfully, pointing to a currently raincloud-obscured smudge on the horizon.

“Sorta. Wouldn’t’a known what it was, but I can see it.”

“Bit far t’fly on yer own two wings,” Prowl felt claws tweak the nearest one gently, “ain’t it?”

“Since I _can’t_ fly on ’em,” Prowl batted playfully at Jazz with the door in question, “I’d say so, yeah. Couldn’t swim it either. ’S farther away than our little island off th’coast near Hightower was from th’mainland.” A distance Jazz had said was nigh un-swimmable even for her when they’d been there.

“Kinda crazy, stupidly risky? Reckless, even? T’set out fer it on a raft with no fuel, no idea what it even is, an’ no idea’a th’dangers, just th’knowledge that mechs who tried t’fly out inta th’blue either barely made it back, exhausted, or didn’t come back at all, ain’t it? Specially when home is safe, if kinda crowded.”

Prowl blinked as her meaning settled in. “Oh. But it turned out t’be a good thing once they got there, didn’t it? Fer those who finally made it?”

“Did!”

“Hmm.” She continued looking out over the water. Was it a risk she would have taken? She giggled. Silly question; look where she was now! “Maybe I used up m’recklessness on bigger things’n don’t have any left fer trees,” she joked.

Jazz’s smile said she didn’t believe that for a nanoklik. “Wanna show ya somethin’.” She stood, balancing effortlessly on the crystal. She ran a few steps, then jumped to the next tree, landing solidly on all fours, claws gripping the crystal effortlessly, on a branch slightly below them.

“Show me what?” Prowl stayed close to the trunk as she got to her feet, gauging the distance.

“Somethin’ y’can’t see from the ground,” Jazz called back daringly.

“Pest!” But it wasn’t too long a jump. Prowl stepped out onto the branch, balancing with her doors and keeping her optics on her goal. Taking the last few steps quickly, she jumped across the gap to land beside Jazz in the next tree.

Grinning, Jazz steadied her, then took another running start and jumped to another branch. Prowl followed, faster this time, and Jazz only waited long enough to see that she’d made it before taking off again. “Where’re we going?” Prowl asked, pausing to tuck up the edge of her sarong so it wouldn’t get snagged on anything or wind around her legs when she tried to jump.

“There.” Jazz pointed to a glittering blue hexbug sipping energon from a hole drilled into one of the pohon crystals. It was a dangerous looking bug, with a sharp, barbed stinger on its abdomen, a head with a pair of large mandibles, and thin angled wings. “’S’a wera,” Jazz said.

“’S’pretty,” Prowl acknowledged, but why this required leaping through the trees, she didn’t see.

Ignoring Prowl’s skepticism, Jazz leaped to the tree the wera was drinking from and climbed up so she was clinging to the branch above it. Drawing a string with a scrap of white koekoea feather tied to the end, she made a slipknot and carefully tightened the loop onto the abdomen of the occupied hexbug, then… let it go. Prowl expected the feather to drag the wera down, but it didn’t appear to notice. It took its time finishing up its meal, then took off.

“Follow it, beautiful.”

 _What?_ Prowl looked at Jazz, who was urging her after it with a wide smile. “Why—?"

“Follow it! Or we’ll lose it.”

Not letting herself think about how _crazy_ that was, Prowl scrambled across the branch and leaped after the bug.

Almost immediately, following the wera proved harder than she’d thought it would be. The hexbug flew in erratic, swerving paths around and through the branches, stopping randomly to hover or feed. Its glittering blue carapace might have shone brightly in the sunlight, but as it moved from sun to shadow and back again under the canopy, Prowl would have lost sight of it completely if it weren’t for the white feather.

She didn’t really have time to think a lot about where she was climbing and jumping. If she stopped, she’d lose it completely! Recklessly scrambling from branch to branch, Prowl dug her fingers into the rough pits and grooves worn into the crystal from being exposed to the weather. She wished she had claws, but even that thought was utterly fleeting in favor of the chase.

It felt _good_ to chase. The focus on the bug, her _prey,_ sang through her frame, purred in her mind. It was exhilarating and it was all she could do to remind herself when she got close that it would be a bad idea to actually pounce on it. But she kind of wanted to pounce on it. Was that how Sundance, how Jazz, felt when they hunted?

She misjudged a branch and it broke under her. Instinct and panic had her twisting in midair to bring her arms under her so she could hold on when she slammed into the branch beneath her. She hung precariously. Jazz landed on the branch, shaking it, and pulled her up like a kitten.

“Come on, beautiful. We’re gonna lose it.” Jazz darted away, following the receding feather floating through the trees.

Prowl huffed, but she’d been given no chance to complain, no time to even think about giving up. Her side and abdominal plating throbbing painfully, she stood and scrambled much less gracefully after them on shaky arms and legs.

Peripherally, she did notice when more of the blue flash-gone-flash wera appeared around them. She knew that getting too close would be a bad idea — that big stinger would be an unpleasant encounter indeed — but she didn’t have room to worry about it, even when she wound up sharing a branch with one of the wera, chewing a hole in the crystal with its large mandibles, and barely avoided stepping on it. Perhaps another time, that would have made her freeze up and gibber for a bit about how close of a call she’d had with danger, but right now she was too caught up in the chase. The feather-marked bug was getting away!

A breakneck chase through the trees later, she was finally able to stop as the wera came to what was obviously its nest. There were a _lot_ more wera here, and even caught up in the chase, she wasn’t about to get right in the middle of so many stingers!

EM field radiating excitement, Jazz landed on the branch next to her. “Nice,” she praised.

“Gonna tell m’why we’re chasin’ a bug across th’forest?” Prowl asked, rubbing the fading ache in her side as she watched the other wera clip the string off of the one they’d been following.

“Inna bit,” Jazz said absently. Using the saw-edge of her digging knife, she cut a length of ohe from the nearest stalk and stripped the metal covering off the end, exposing the carbon core. She held it out to Prowl. “Fire-light spell?”

With a frown of concentration, Prowl cast her spark cantrip, lighting the improvised torch.

Jazz let it burn for a klik, then blew out the flame so it created a thick curl of dark smoke. She held that up to the nest.

It didn’t catch on fire, but the occupants weren’t happy nonetheless. With an uptick in the beat of their droning wings, the sparkling blue wera abandoned the nest, crawling out of it and flying away into the trees until there were none left.

Showing off her teeth in a wide smile, Jazz skittered like a lizard up the final distance to the empty nest and beckoned Prowl to join her.

Really? She was exhausted from the frantic pursuit through the trees! And somewhat bewildered by the speed with which it had concluded with just a little fire and smoke.

“C’mon. Last climb, beautiful.”

“Ain’t,” Prowl protested, pulling herself up through the crystal branches to join her crazy mate all the same. “Gonna have ta climb back down too.”

Jazz laughed. “Gittin’ t’th’ground ain’t _ever_ th’hard part.”

“Gittin’ t’th’ground in one piece’s still a good idea.” At the height they were currently at, Prowl didn’t think she could fall the whole way without breaking something, even if it was just one of the branches on her way down. On the plus side, she didn’t think it would kill her if she happened to slip. “So what _is_ that?”

“Y’should be th’one t’pick it,” Jazz encouraged without answering.

It took both hands, which meant inching out over it to cling to a too-thin branch with her knees, but Prowl was able to separate the thing from the crystal it had been attached to without dropping it. The thin segment connecting them broke when she twisted it, and she supported it carefully as she inched her way back down. It didn’t feel fragile, exactly, but it wasn’t as solid as a kelapa.

“Wera make their own hot spots,” Jazz murmured, tapping it. It didn’t sound hollow at all. “Here,” she dug her fingers into the outer casing, showing Prowl how it flexed at that point, “pry it apart here.”

Prowl pushed her fingers into that spot, through the thin, plastic layers of the nest, prying it open. It tore, splitting into two halves, each filled with dozens and dozens of hexagonal capsules. Unlike the outside, which was opaque and blended with the colors of the nearby crystals, the interior structure was milky white and semi-translucent, and the capsules were filled with a bright, glowing liquid that seemed to scintillate between blue and pink. She recognized it now: ka meli. Jazz had brought some to their wedding in Praxus, sealed in a decorated kelapa shell container. Prowl hadn’t seen what it looked like before it had been diluted with various crystals, then diluted further with Praxan highgrade to spread it out among the king’s table so as many of the guests as possible could have a taste, but those drinks had been a thinner, almost watery shade of this color.

One of the capsules had broken when Prowl pulled the nest apart. Jazz reached inside to dip her finger into it. The liquid was thick, barely a liquid at all, and clung to her finger like sticky glue when she withdrew it. She held it out to Prowl in offer. “Try.”

She hadn’t given her any idea what to expect. It was just as well. Nothing Jazz could have said would have been an adequate description. Prowl’s first lick quickly turned into a gasp of surprise. “That’s—!”

Jazz smiled widely, optic band sparkling. “Yep. ’S’ _highgrade,”_ she said, using the Praxan word.

“Is! But I thought— everyone buys so much’a it in Hightower, I thought there wasn’t any _highgrade_ in Polyhex.”

“Ain’t,” Jazz confirmed. “’Cept this. Gonna take it back’n share it. Everyone gits a taste.”

“Everyone?” With so many people, it really would have to just be a taste. “Hope there’s enough here. Ain’t all that big a nest.” She considered it, estimating what the total amount of ka meli might be if poured out into the flutes she was used to for highgrade. “This a usual size?”

“Aka.” Jazz licked her finger clean, humming in pleasure. Then she hopped off the branch and clambered down the main trunk of the crystal while Prowl dipped her own finger in the broken capsule for another tiny taste. It was so potent! Because it was so thick? Regardless, there wasn’t enough here to get drunk on. Not if they were sharing it with the camp, which she’d already known was What Was Done with ka meli. Seeing what was involved in finding and retrieving just this much put Jazz’s protectiveness of what she’d brought to Praxus into a whole new light.

“Hey,” she said a nanoklik later, looking down at Jazz. “No fair leavin’ me up ’ere!”

Jazz’s optic band glowed brightly and her expression was distinctly amused. “Y’sayin’ y’can’t climb down?”

“No! Ain’t what I said at all.” It might have been what she was thinking, but that had more to do with not wanting to damage the nest and lose any of the ka meli than worrying about whether she could reach the ground. Jazz hadn’t exactly left her with much choice though. Taking a deep breath, Prowl found a position where she could hold both halves of the nest against her chest with one arm and started working her way down.

“Gotcha.” Jazz’s arms wrapped around her in support when she made the last jump.

“Thanks,” Prowl said, leaning into the hug. “And, thanks. Fer draggin’ me through th’trees.”

She felt Jazz’s lips on the back of her neck in a kiss. “Anytime, beautiful.”

“Careful, I might take ya up on that in th’near future.” It had been a lesson on the necessary balance between recklessness and caution, but it had also just been _fun,_ and refreshingly free of newlings. They weren’t precisely hard to take care of, other than it being impossible to keep track of them all, but they were always there, always needing something. Prowl enjoyed being useful and she loved the newlings deeply, but even she needed a break every now and then.

Now though, they returned to the camp, its noise, and the newlings. Nudging Prowl forward with the ka meli, Jazz let herself fade to the background as they approached. Busy and loud as it was, Prowl was happy to see it again.

“What’cha got?” Chromia asked, seeing how Prowl was cradling the two halves of the nest still.

“’S ka meli,” Prowl answered, wondering what the procedure for sharing it would be.

Chromia’s optic band blinked. Then she smiled widely. “Niiice. I think I’ve got an empty miso barrel on m’kattumaram. Want me t’teach ya th’tetere call?”

“Please.”

It took an embarrassing amount of time to get right. Enough time for one of Chromia’s clanmates to retrieve the barrel and haul it back to the center of camp. Luckily Prowl didn’t even _need_ to get it right for people to begin gathering, adults with their own armfuls of offerings and newlings looking on in open curiosity. There didn’t seem to be a solid procedure (no surprise there), but there was a lot of cheering, and Prowl slowly realized she was being treated with a sort of honor as the activity swirled around her. Kelapa were cracked open and poured into the barrel, all sorts of other crystals were crushed or broken or mushed and added. The crate filled with liquid. Another barrel appeared from… Prowl wasn’t sure where. More kelapa formed the base of the mix in that one as well.

Even the newlings participated. They cheered and clapped, and some ran off to find their own crystals to add and came back with all sorts of things. Fortunately the adults policed what should and shouldn’t be added to the barrels — not just to weed out inedibles, but to moderate the taste. Unlike with the hupa, it seemed there was a specific flavor profile they were going for with the ka meli.

Amidst the parade of people who suddenly wanted to talk to her, Prowl saw Jazz slink in and add clusters of what she recognized as spicy seed crystals by crushing them so the liquid inside oozed out. Permission to be in the camp obtained, Jazz gave Prowl a quick kiss — and everyone around them cheered — before letting herself fade back into the crowd.

It was really something, seeing everyone all concentrated together like this. The bizarre dichotomy of the crowd being both large and small struck Prowl again as the last stragglers came in, responding to the tetere call she’d finally managed to play successfully.

At last Chromia was satisfied they’d gathered up all the necessary kelapa and other seed crystals and divided the mix into the two vessels. “Now, pour it inta th’barrels,” she instructed Prowl.

“Half’n half?”

“Aka.”

The nest hadn’t split perfectly in half. Prowl emptied the smaller piece into one barrel first, then continued from the larger one until she had as much left in her hands as she had poured out, or thereabouts. She was careful to make sure she got every last bit of the ka meli out though, even if it was impossible to partition it precisely. Everyone cheered her efforts regardless, and the liquid was stirred until everything had taken on a very faint tinge of the ka meli’s brightness.

With the mix complete, bowls were dipped in, and everyone was careful to catch every last drip. There seemed to be a specific — rather small — amount each person was allowed. Many people congratulated her, either before or after taking their share, even newlings, who undoubtedly didn’t know why but were excellent mimics. Prowl couldn’t help smiling, even though the ritual was just as new to her as it was to them.

Somewhere drums started and another instrument joined them. There’d be dancing soon.

“Everyone’s so happy.”

“Y’found something we only git once’r twice between storm seasons, youngster,” a mech, one of the elders Prowl had been hoping to eventually talk to, said. “’S’cause fer celebration.”

“Ah. If it’s that rare, yeah.” And it was much better shared like this than hoarded, in her opinion. She’d have shared the credit for finding it too, if Jazz would let her! Her complete lack of bragging made it clear she didn’t intend to though, which left all the showing off up to Prowl. She could do this… “Wasn’t easy t’find, that’s fer sure, an’ even harder t’get down!”

“Bet it was,” the elder agreed knowingly. “M’name’s Comet, an’ this,” he reached up to caress a tiny cryosnake draped around his neck that was _definitely poisonous,_ “is Star. We’re’a Bluesand Island.”

“Prowl’a Rainclouds,” Prowl introduced herself. “And Praxus,” she added, wondering if this could be the opportunity she’d been waiting for to “start the whole diplomancing thing”, as Sundance put it. “M’spirit, Sundance, is… around.”

Comet chuckled lightly. “Yer spirit has been makin’ ’erself known. Curious and meddlesome.” With optics that looked cloudy with scratches, he examined Prowl critically. “But not as shy as ya seem. Y’shouldn’t be the last ta take yer share.”

“Prax customs’re a lot quieter’n Polyhexian,” Prowl explained this time as she carefully measured out the appropriate amount of the ka meli mixture for herself. “I was trained t’do things differently. Ain’t tryin’ t’be shy so much’s respectful.”

“M’clan adopted a Prax when I was a newling an’ I remember.” Comet led Prowl only a short distance away to sit. “He was a village hound, a small, curious critter who was always gettin’ inta messes. Our clan knew ’im, and that ’e was quiet by habit and not in spirit, but t’most that sort’a dichotomy can be seen as deceptive.”

“Deceptive?” That was considerably worse than shy, and not at all what she’d been intending. “I’m not! Ain’t been anythin’ but honest with everyone,” she said, allowing herself to be more vehement about it than she would have been in Praxus.

“Some cats’re shy,” Comet acknowledged, “so no one thinks anythin’a it yet. But yer spirit is so very not-shy people ain’t gonna think it’s part’a yer nature fer long.”

As if to make a perfectly timed demonstration, Prowl felt familiar little paws on her back an instant before one very not-shy cybercat leaped up onto her shoulder. “I want a taste,” Sundance demanded. “I tried getting someone else to share, but they said I had to get it from you.”

“Sundance, Comet, Comet, Sundance,” Prowl said, dipping a finger in her bowl and holding it up for Sundance to lick while she mewed, “Everyone only gets a set amount with this stuff, and it’s good. Can you blame them for not wanting to share?”

“Should share with _me,”_ Sundance meowed, somewhat muffled by Prowl’s finger. Comet looked on in amusement. She purred in approval. “I’m so pretty, after all.”

“A pretty pest,” Prowl laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ll always share with you, whether you’re able to convince others to share with you or not.”

“Love you,” the pest purred.

As she licked the last of the ka meli mixture off of Prowl’s finger, Comet held out his own to Sundance. “Elua’re very not shy.”

That was a new word. Prowl knew the word for what Sundance was, and that wasn’t it. _“Elua?”_

Comet tapped Sundance’s nose, which wrinkled in offense, then Prowl’s chest. “Elua.” He tapped Star’s back, then his own chest. “Elua.”

Prowl’s nose wrinkled at first too, only in confusion. Then it clicked. “We’re not shy?”

 _“Satu,”_ Comet corrected. “To refer t’yerself y’say _satu.”_

To refer to herself _and_ Sundance. As one. There was no grammatical equivalent in Praxan; it spoke, to Prowl, of the unique way Polyhex viewed spirit guides. _“Satu_ ain’t shy.” She looked at Sundance and received a soft but solid brush against her cheek as the cybercat rubbed her face against her.

…This was why Jazz thought a gift from Sundance was a gift from Prowl, wasn’t it? Because they were linked at such a deep level. Which meant—

“She’s been laughin’ at me fer not likin’ gettin’ wet!”

Comet’s optic band blinked in startlement.

“Every time she laughs at Sundance bein’ a shipcat that doesn’t like gettin’ wet, she’s laughin’ at _satu.”_ Prowl let out an indignant huff. “Brat!”

Comet blinked again.

“Told you she was a meanie,” Sundance mewed.

“She’s lucky I love her,” Prowl mewed back, then turned apologetically to Comet. “Sorry. Somethin’ I didn’t understand before makes sense now. Thanks fer explainin’ it t’me.”

“Of course,” he said with a practiced, habitual preen, even if it was obvious he didn’t quite understand what he was being thanked for.

“Would ya explain some other things fer me?” Prowl asked, seizing the opportunity. “There’re things I wanna do,” needed to do, “that I don’t know enough t’do, and Jazz can’t help me with ’em.”

“Can certainly try.”

“I’m here t’learn what it means t’be Polyhexian. T’understand Jazz better, an’ be a part’a ’er clan. Our clan,” she corrected. “But I’m still Praxan too. I wanna try t’make things better between our clans, but I don’t know who ta talk to or where t’start.”

“Ain’t sure how things could be better,” he responded slowly. “Tryin’ t’mediate war-season conflicts?”

Prowl nodded. That was a good way of putting it. “How are conflicts between clans mediated? Who’s responsible fer workin’ out disagreements’n grievances?” It was difficult trying to phrase what she was looking for when she didn’t have the words for _government_ or _laws._ “Hierarchy,” she said, finding a word she did know. “How’re things organized?”

“Ah, well.” Finishing up his bowl of ka meli mixture with a pleased sigh, Comet laid back in the sand, resting his head on his arms. Star slithered out to coil up on his abdomen, in a patch of his plating warmed by the sun. He flicked his tongue tiredly, and Prowl saw the ridge of his spinal struts sharply visible against his thin body. “If y’think yer clan’s been offended by th’warriors’a another, durin’ th’harvest season, y’come ’ere an’ track down a priest-mage’a that clan or six. Maybe even th’elders. An’ y’invite ’em t’share yer hupa.”

“Any priest-mage?” Prowl moved her bowl away from Sundance, who was trying to steal another taste. “Stop that,” she told the cat.

 _“You’re_ not drinking it!”

“I’m _going_ to drink it, so stop it.”

“If y’got a friend’r lover in that clan, y’would track ’im down,” Comet answered, without so much as blinking at the meowed exchange between mage and familiar. “Friends’re always best at smoothin’ ruffled platin’.”

“So there ain’t one person in charge? A specific person yer supposed t’go to first?” That would complicate things. “What if th’friend decides somethin’ th’rest’a th’clan doesn’t like?”

“What’s there t’decide?” Comet shrugged casually. _“Decidin’s_ different. Definitely people fer makin’ decisions. But soothin’ grievances ain’t about decisions. Ain’t any’a us who can tell th’warriors what t’do durin’ their season.”

“At all?” That would _really_ complicate things. “How d’ya keep ’em from doin’ stuff they shouldn’t then?”

“Like…” He fell silent trying to think of an example. “Attackin’ their own clan? Same as anyone, I guess.”

That Prowl did know something about. It had come up during the wedding negotiations when they were working out what potential punishments she would be subject to in Polyhex: personal challenges, punishment rituals, ostracization, exile. Consequences on an individual level, not the group. “What about makin’ agreements between clans? To, to… cooperate, ’stead’a punish?”

“Warriors hold conferences like that sometimes,” Comet said disinterestedly. “Gatherin’ their friends from near clans t’attack stronger ones, or t’go on great hunts. It’s their business.”

“Then if I wanted t’talk t’someone ’bout th’raids on Prax ships,” Prowl considered what were looking like her options and not liking either of them, “who should I go to?”

“There’s only fifty’r so warrior-leaders who lead those raids,” Comet assured comfortingly. “Yer mate’s one’a ’em. Rainclouds has favorable winds t’git t’Prax.”

So she should talk to Jazz? But Jazz had already made it clear she didn’t have the authority to make the kind of promises required of a treaty. Not for Polyhex as a whole.

“Maybe you have to talk to both the warriors and the priest-mages?” Sundance suggested, annoyingly close to the ka meli again. “If they’re both that involved in running things at different times?”

“Maybe.” Prowl pushed the cat’s head away from the bowl again and brought it up to her lips. “Which clans’re th’most powerful?” she asked, then exclaimed after finally tasting the mixture. “Oh! It’s amazin’!”

“Makes things just fuzzy enough t’make talkin’ ’bout difficult things pleasant,” the older mech said with amusement. “Ain’t sure I understand th’question though. Right now Nightshroud’n Mistcaller Islands have dibs on th’most newlings. Rainclouds ain’t far behind.”

It would give her a pleasant buzz, Prowl realized after another sip. The flavor was a vibrant medley of crystal sweetness and peppery zing, tangy and spicy with a little bit of bite from the thick, sensuous ka meli, and the effects were unmistakably that of mild highgrade. Perfect for political discussions, just like it was used in Praxus at the end of large formal meals. “Right now?” Prowl echoed, taking in the implications. “Clan rankin’ is fluid?”

The look Comet gave her implied she was crazy for thinking anything else.

“Meant it’s _that_ fluid,” Prowl tried to explain. Of course political systems were dynamic. She’d expected to find multiple interests and agendas within Polyhex, just as there were in Praxus. What she hadn’t expected was such a loosely organized mess of constantly moving parts. “They can change in th’span’a a single season?”

Comet’s look turned indulgent. “Clan ‘rankin’’,” he said the word like this was an unfamiliar usage, “can change sunrise t’sunrise. If Bluethorn Island sails in with another boat’a fish t’share, y’might have’ta say goodbye t’that young Hound yer so fond’a.”

How was Polyhexian politics this complicated? Prowl shook her head and continued to drink. “Currents in Praxus flow slower’n they do here, I guess,” she said with a sigh. The ka meli really was delicious. She had been too anxious, and the natural highgrade too diluted, to appreciate it at the wedding. Here, in its proper context, it was wonderful. “I like Kindle.”

“Don’t _think_ Bluethorn’ll bring any more food,” Comet said comfortingly. “Yer efforts’re a boon t’yer clan. Rainclouds’ claim is stronger this season cuz they like ya. Harder t’separate ’em from ya.”

“That counts?” Prowl smiled. “Good. They should git t’go with who they like, if ’s possible.” And she really did like Kindle, as the young fire starter had taken to being called. She liked Crux too, the remaining femme who’d taken up all but permanent residence in her sleeping hollow, and so many of the others. They were a delight to watch, however stressful watching _over_ them was. “’M curious t’see how everyone gets split up.”

“It’s quite th’party.”

Prowl finished off what was left in her bowl and set it aside for Sundance to lick clean, then joined Comet in laying in the sand. She wasn’t really drunk; the relaxed buzz wouldn’t last for long, so she intended to enjoy it while it did. “Hope they all make it through th’rest’a th’season.”

“Y’got a big spark,” Comet said, unexpectedly sitting up. “Should let others have a chance t’talk t’ya.”

“’M happy t’talk t’anyone,” Prowl said, turning her head to look at him. “Was real happy t’talk t’ya. Thanks fer helpin’ me. _Satu,”_ she patted Sundance’s back, who purred, “’re grateful.”

“’Course.” Star wound his way back to his resting spot around Comet’s neck as he stood slowly. Prowl wondered how old he was. An “elder”, yes, but what did that translate to for Polyhexians in vorns? Polys didn’t have the kind of medicine that she as a Praxan princess had taken for granted, but Prowl had also seen more healing magic used since the harvest season started than she’d ever imagined existed. Praxan clerics were rare, and hoarded their powers jealousy in the face of technological advancements. In Iacon, healing magic was more common, owing to that country being ruled by their religious caste, but still, only clerics and occasionally the Paladins of Primus had access to it. Here, it seemed almost all of the priest-mages could cast a healing spell or two, even those who specialized in other magics.

She didn’t try to keep Comet with another question though. Once she felt like getting up she could find someone else to ask, or ask any adults who came to join her in this very nice patch of sun.

What she actually wound up with was a cuddlepile of happily buzzed newlings. This was their very first experience with this sort of intoxicant, and it was adorable listening to their descriptions of how things looked and felt as they snuggled and petted each other (and her).

“Y’have anythin’ like this in Prax?” one of them asked. They all knew she was from “somewhere different”, and while many had just left it at that, there were those who had remained curious about Praxus.

“Do,” Prowl answered, one door twitching away from a hand that was getting a little too familiar. “Ain’t th’same thing, quite, but even though th’taste is different it makes things fuzzy like this. ’S called _highgrade_ there.”

“Ooooo…” several of them chorused.

“I wanna go t’Prax’n try it,” one, who’d chosen the name Redshift just that morning, pronounced boldly.

“Can, one sunrise. Gonna have ta learn t’sail first though,” Prowl chuckled.

“I like sailing,” piped up a newling femme. It was hard to tell since she wasn’t going to stick her hand in there to check, but Prowl thought she didn’t have have fully formed fangs.

“Yeah? Y’been out on th’boats then?” Not all the newlings had, but some made a habit of lurking on the riverbank and waiting for someone to head out to fish.

“Have!” She wiggled to cuddle up next to Prowl’s side. “I’m very good at th’rope. _And_ I can already spear fish!”

“Can? That’s great!” Prowl was better with nets than spears, but spears had a wider range of uses and were a good thing to master. She hugged her, stroking her shoulder. “Fair warnin’ though: when yer fuzzy like this, yer aim’n reflexes’ll be off.”

“Still feels nice,” she purred, wiggling to settle into Prowl’s embrace.

_Lick._

“Eep!” That was awfully close to her chest! She’d been getting used to all the touching everyone did by virtue of the fact that it was literally impossible to escape with so many tactile newlings all over the place, but licking was a bit much! “Please don’t.”

“Feels good.” She arched into Prowl’s hand on her shoulder. “Want ya t’feel good too.”

“That’s nice’a ya,” Prowl said, because it was, “but that ain’t how I wanna enjoy bein’ fuzzy.”

“’Kay,” she conceded.

“I like being licked,” Crux volunteered from her other side.

“Should lick each other then. I’ll leave ya t’yer fun.” Prowl eased her way out of the pile, which was quickly escalating from cuddlepile to orgy. Not something she wanted to be a part of, for all she wasn’t going to say anything against it. Polyhexians treated interfacing differently, and that was fine.

It also helped explain why Jazz had assumed she was a newling herself when they’d first met. It really hadn’t taken most of the newlings here long to start exploring physical pleasure, whereas Prowl had been afraid of it.

“Pick me up,” Sundance meowed, twining around her feet.

“Aww. Not too tipsy to walk, are you?” Not likely, after so little of the relatively weak mix, but Prowl picked up her cat anyway. “Hi. I don’t suppose if I asked you to stop poking into everything so people don’t think I’m so nosy it’d work?”

“No.” Sundance flicked an ear and stared up at her. “You’d have to stop being nosy first.”

“I’m _not_ nosy,” Prowl protested.

“Are. You’re as nosy as I am, because I’m as nosy as you.” She sniffed. “You just think you can’t be, so you pretend you aren’t.”

Prowl felt her EM field blush. “Princesses aren’t nosy,” she meowed at the cat.

“You’re nosy, and you’re a princess.” Sundance wasn’t bothered in the slightest by her being both. “You’re a _cat.”_

Prowl didn’t dignify that with a response. She needed to think about what Comet had told her, but it would have to wait until she wasn’t fuzzy. Hmm. Jazz would be over with the music and dancing. Maybe she could find her and not-think for a little while.

Setting off in a direction at random, Prowl went from one pocket of music to the next, being careful where she wandered. The newlings weren’t the only ones taking advantage of the highgrade— ka meli and the resulting fuzzy feeling by indulging in pleasure. She’d gotten used to overhearing the sounds of interfacing, and used them to avoid the knots of lovers as best she could. Part of her could admit to being a little curious, but she wasn’t so _nosy_ that she wouldn’t give them what privacy she could! Which wasn’t always much. Some mechs and femmes hadn’t bothered to even move out of the way of traffic.

Prowl sidestepped a trio of mechs enjoying each other in the middle of the path between two of the fires. She tried not to look too closely, but they were _right there,_ and one of them looked an awful lot like—

“Isn’t that Thunder?” she asked her familiar.

“No~sy,” Sundance sing-songed as she craned her head back to look. “Yup! And definitely _not_ Starburst with him,” she reported, gleefully scandalized.

“Either of them?” Prowl couldn’t stop herself from glancing back too. Nope. Neither of the mechs with Thunder was Starburst.

Thunder and Starburst were bonded. Did Starburst know this was going on?

“It’s not like they’re hiding.” Sundance balanced on Prowl’s shoulder to scratch an itch on her chin with one hind paw.

“They really aren’t.” Which meant that Starburst would at least hear about this, if he didn’t stumble across it personally. “He must… not be worried.”

Which meant… that the free and frequent interfacing she’d seen in the newlings and unbonded adults really didn’t stop when a Polyhexian bonded. She could conclude that maybe Thunder and Starburst had an unusual relationship, like Ricochet and Smokescreen, but… that was the issue, wasn’t it? She had proof that Ricochet and Smokescreen’s arrangement wasn’t unique.

So what did that say about her and Jazz? Her mate hadn’t been bothered to hear people had been coming onto Prowl, but Prowl hadn’t even considered the reverse until now.

“Primus.” She stopped in her tracks. “I’m not going to find _her_ on the ground with someone else, am I?”

Sundance’s tail lashed and her audial flaps pricked up. “I hear her.”

With someone? Prowl was afraid to ask, but she did. “Where? What is she doing?”

“Singing.”

Prowl listened more closely, searching for the familiar sound amidst the general revelry. It took a moment, but then she was able to pick it out: ahead and to the left, boisterous and happy. A dancing song. _Not_ one of the gossiping-to-the-winds songs she sang after interfacing. Prowl relaxed enough to start moving again in the direction of her mate.

She found her around a fire near the edge of the camp. There were heavy drums and bright flutes, and several other instruments she didn’t know. Jazz danced like smoke while spectators chanted and reached out to caress her plating. She didn’t discourage the touches, but she didn’t flirt back.

Why not? Prowl wondered for the first time. If that was what was normal for her people, then why not? They’d never spoken about it. Prowl hadn’t even known they needed to. They would need to soon, now… But not right this nanoklik. Right now Jazz was dancing without flirting, wild and beautiful, embracing a celebration of joy and sharing, something she’d willingly given up once before to bring Prowl a wedding gift that no one had been able to appreciate the way it deserved.

She really was the best mate ever. Prowl loved her so much.

Jazz hadn’t seen Prowl yet, a rare moment of distraction. It made her look… pouncable.

“Happy hunting,” Sundance mewed playfully before leaping away.

Hunting, huh? Well, Prowl wouldn’t be able to sneak up on Jazz completely, but she was confident she could “take her down”, so to speak. Lowering her doors so she wouldn’t be quite so optic-catching, Prowl walked forward. Even so, she didn’t go unnoticed at all by the crowd and mechs and femmes moved aside, snickers and knowing chortles rising in her wake like wake-light trailing after a boat.

Jazz still hadn’t spotted her, but the next twirl of her dance would bring her around to face Prowl. She could either try to move with her, working sideways in an attempt to stay out of sight, or she could jump in and intercept.

Don’t be shy, take more risks, _desire._ She knew what she wanted to do.

On the next beat of the drum, Prowl leapt into the dance.

She moved with Jazz, hands settling on her hips, capturing her and helping her twirl at the same time. Prowl felt her love’s initial neutral, accepting-but-not-reciprocating the flirting, response in the nanokliks before she turned and saw her now-flared doorwings. A cheer went up around the crowd as Jazz’s song soared higher and her arms wrapped around her mate.

“Hi, beautiful,” Prowl said, squeezing back.

“’Lo, beautiful,” Jazz purred. She smiled, not at all upset at being caught. “Felt ya huntin’ somethin’.”

“Was huntin’ ya. I wanted ta—” Oh, why waste time with words? Prowl closed the distance between them, sealing her lips over Jazz’s with a kiss.

Everyone cheered again.

“Spirits’n gods,” Jazz whispered when they pulled apart. Her frame was noticeably warmer, and Prowl could hear the faint burr of her fans. Her smile turned cheeky. “That _all_ y’wanna do t’me?”

“That’s just a start.” Prowl wanted to do _all_ the things to Jazz, and she let her feel it in her field. “Love ya.”

Jazz shivered, echoing with her own _want_ as she leaned in to kiss Prowl again. Their audience was clearly enjoying the show, and for once Prowl didn’t let their presence stop her from returning the kiss. There was even a part of her that was spurred on by it, wanting to show each and every one of them that Jazz was _hers._ The kiss was a claim, and Prowl made sure her intentions were unmistakably clear.

She was not, however, going to do everything else in front of the crowd.

“Follow me t’th’forest?”

“Follow ya anywhere, beautiful.”

Prowl smiled. “Then let’s go.”

Taking Jazz’s hand, Prowl led her away from the general revelry, searching for a spot to indulge their passion. Jazz didn’t make it easy, letting her free hand roam over Prowl’s plating as they walked and leaning in for nibbles and kisses. It made Prowl want to just scoop her up and— well, why not?

“Ah! Haha!” Jazz’s surprised exclamation quickly turned to joyful laughter as Prowl twirled her around and lifted her into her arms. She was heavy, and Prowl had more trouble than when Jazz was the one to pick her up, but she was taller than Jazz and she managed. They were still close enough to a nearby cluster of mechs that the maneuver earned a few hoots and whistles, and Prowl flared her doors proudly and possessively over her back. Jazz was her mate!

“Think I like ya like this,” Jazz purred, making no effort to escape being carried off. All she seemed interested in doing was continuing to tease Prowl’s seams. Prowl put a stop to that by shifting her so she could nuzzle her helm and lick along the side of one of her audial horns. “Spirits’n gods!” Teasing fingers lost their coordination as Jazz trembled, and Prowl grinned against the horn as she licked it again.

At last she found a place that felt secluded enough. No one else was occupying the small hollow behind a stand of thick, old crystal trees, and Prowl settled Jazz at their base in the sand. “Yer so beautiful,” she whispered, pinning Jazz back against the crystal with a determined kiss.

Sparklight glowed between them from beneath slightly parted plating when Prowl pulled back. Jazz’s visor was glowing too, bright with love and awe. “Ain’t got nothin’ on ya fer beauty,” she said softly, reverently, hands coming up to frame Prowl’s face.

“Oh, I’m pretty,” Prowl said, accepting the compliment as she brought her own hands up to cover Jazz’s. “But yer straight up gorgeous. Outside,” she let her hands slide down Jazz’s arms, sweeping over her shoulders and down to her chest, “and in.” _Tap, tap._ “Lemme in,” she asked with her fingers. “Lemme make ya feel good.”

“Prowl!” Jazz’s spark pulsed and _reached_ as her armor parted further, granting Prowl access. Her helm fell back against the tree as her hands half-pulled, half-followed Prowl’s head forward. There was _arousal, desire, love!_ all strong in her field, layered over a lingering sense of _surprise_ and _delight._

“Should do this more often,” Prowl murmured, mouth and hands seeking out sensitive spots with the intent of making Jazz melt. It was her turn to lavish her mate with attention, to show her how much she loved her. “Love seein’ ya in pleasure like this.” _Because of me._

“’S cuz’a ya,” Jazz inadvertently echoed. “Yer so— ah! So good at makin’ me see stars!” She shivered beneath Prowl as her lips brushed against delicate internal components. Tendrils of spark energy curled over Prowl’s face, caressing her chevron the same way Prowl was stroking her fingers up Jazz’s sides, jumping back and forth between the lines they’d painted on and the gentle dips of her transformation seams. “Best mate ever.”

“Am,” Prowl said, proud of how confident it sounded. “Gonna be th’best mate y’could ever ask fer. Do all th’things fer ya.” Like coax the flickering, barely-there sparks beginning to gather as Jazz’s charge rose into a storm of pleasure and bring her to overload.

She knew she was on the right track when Jazz’s only answer was a wordless cry.

Her own charge rose in response to Jazz’s, but Prowl didn’t let herself get lost in it. Her focus was on Jazz, on the sounds she made, the way she twisted into her touches, the way her spark _called._ Prowl sat up straighter, repositioning so she could bring their mouths together in a kiss as she slid one hand up to cradle Jazz’s spark, petting it like the precious star it was.

Jazz’s overload was unmistakable. Prowl smiled when she felt the wave catch her lover, basking in her joy as she kept up what she was doing to push her as high and as far as it could carry her.

.

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	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter warnings:** discussions of "human" sacrifice and offscreen "human" sacrifice.

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With her new insight into how Polyhexian politics worked — showing off, friendship ties, and generosity as the main mechanisms in an ever-shifting political web that, right now, was devoted to laying dibs on the largest number of newlings — it was easier to see the clans shift it into high gear as the harvest season approached its end. More mechs and femmes, initially just priest-mages but eventually even some warriors as the season wore on, arrived with gifts of food and jewelry and who knew what else to add to the gathering and try to lure the newlings’ affection. Growing up fast and becoming politically savvy themselves, the newlings doled out their affections to the adults carefully, listening seriously to the promises each clan was making before accepting a gift.

Prowl had a few she was making deliberate efforts to cultivate: Crux, who continued to sleep in her sleeping hollow most nights, Kindle the fire mage, and the femme Jazz had harvested who still hadn’t chosen a name but had gathered all her puppies into a sort of pack. It wasn’t easy, being somewhat limited in terms of what she could offer as physical gifts; she had shells, and shell beads, but so did everyone else given how many midye were being cracked open and eaten every cycle. She made up for it though, with her unique knowledge and stories, and by the simple expedient of being friendly and attentive. The other adults weren’t  _ in _ attentive, but they maintained a degree of emotional distance that Prowl just couldn’t bring herself to emulate. She loved the newlings. It tore her apart every time one of them disappeared or died, and she couldn’t say she blamed the other adults for holding themselves apart. The grief she’d carried since the harvest  _ still _ hurt. But the newlings loved her back, so Prowl couldn’t say it was entirely pointless.

Her efforts to learn about Polyhexian culture hadn’t been pointless either. Side by side with the newlings she listened to all the stories, went on excursions around the island, and helped around the camp. She still wasn’t anywhere near the athletes they were, but her swimming and climbing  _ had  _ marginally improved, and she did have better endurance, and a  _ much _ better attention span. Better resistance too, to certain things. Letting herself get stung on purpose (and a few times not on purpose) was extremely unpleasant, but she’d done it. The common purple kina and the wide, flatish kakaru that washed up on the beach didn’t bother her anymore, which was nice.

Sand still bothered her, much to Jazz’s amusement. She’d gotten better at ignoring it, but she still made use of the modified prestidigitation spell to rid herself (and Sundance) of it at night before going to sleep.

As the waves of new arrivals began including more warriors, the gifts and foods coming into the camp started to include things from their trading trips to the mainland. The hupa took on a slew of more metallic Praxan flavors, which was somewhat dissonant to Prowl, given how it wasn’t any less strange and salty tasting for it. Other Praxan goods were traded and passed around and shown off. There were even a few things that were neither Polyhexian nor Praxan that caught Prowl’s attention strongly. New things were fascinating!

The presence of more warriors in general also meant more acceptance of Jazz’s presence in the camp. There was an uptick of mostly friendly competitions — foot races, kopapa competitions, swimming races, and “fire” races (which seemed to just be races that took place in alt over sun-heated sand or rock). And sailing. All the sailing. Every single one of them bragged about the superiority of their skills and their kattumaram, which then had to be backed up with actions as fighting wasn’t allowed.

That tradition wasn’t, as Prowl had initially thought, a complete taboo against all forms of violence. Even during the harvest season there were special circumstances where fighting was permissible, and the truce certainly didn’t eliminate conflicts between people and clans. Some of the arbitration meetings, which looked like nothing so much as a loosely gathered group of people yelling over fuel around a fire, for the most part, filled the air with incredibly creative insults and the occasional thrown object, and there was a lot of conflict-resolution-through-theft in the same vein as Jazz stealing Arcee’s gladius over the insult Prowl’s former fiancé had given her. 

It seemed a bit incongruous to Prowl, given how Polyhexians seemed to view ownership of things in general. How did stealing things solve anything when practically everything was treated as communal property?

Until someone stole her journal.  _ Then _ she understood how something so personal could be valuable enough to resolve a conflict with, even if she shared practically everything else.

“Are you sure you didn’t just misplace it?” Sundance asked as she ransacked the kattumaram looking for it.

“Positive.” The blank journals were still packed up where they belonged, but the one she carried with her was gone. “I had it last cycle, and now it’s missing. Someone took it, and they’d  _ better  _ not have damaged it when I find them or I swear to Primus…”

“Beautiful?” Jazz inquired as Prowl’s thought trailed off. Prowl looked up to see her standing with the recently-arrived Stepper, who was snickering.

“Someone took m’ _ journal.”  _ Prowl stood with a huff, doorwings twitching. “I need t’git it back.”

“‘Jour-nal’?” Stepper repeated the Praxan word curiously.

“’S’a spell’a memory,” Jazz explained. “Prax use ’em.” She clambered onto the kattumaram herself, giving it a cursory look before leaning in to give Prowl a thorough sniff.

“What’re ya doin’?” Prowl didn’t move away, even though what Jazz was doing felt rather invasive. She wouldn’t have let Stepper get away with it, that was for sure. “And it’s not a spell,” she muttered in Praxan.

“Understood that.” Jazz gave her a toothy grin that reminded her that the newlings weren’t the only ones working on their language skills. “Trident’s th’only one who touched yer bag,” she informed her, switching back to Polyhexian. “Go steal it back, yeah?”

“Trident?” Why would he have taken her journal? She hadn’t done anything to offend the Ashfall priest-mage that would warrant a theft! “Steal it back, huh? Can’t just demand it?”

“Maybe later, when y’can mage-duel ’im,” Jazz said offhandedly. “But we’ll be on Rainclouds, an’ he’ll be back on Ashfall, by then.”

This wasn’t fair! It was  _ her _ journal! Prowl growled, annoyed at Trident, at herself, at the whole situation. She  _ wanted _ a court she could appeal to that would make him give it back and apologize! “Fine. I’ll figure a way t’steal it back.” Then she’d ward the thing like her old spellbook so no one could make off with it so easily again. “Don’t say anythin’,” she warned Stepper.

“Wouldn’t dream’a it,” Stepper drawled. 

“Good.” Prowl shoved down her irritation enough to smile and give Stepper a proper greeting. “’S good t’see ya again.”

“Y’ever wanna ditch this trash-pile fer a real boat, lemme know.”

_ “Trash pile!?!!” _ With a snarl Jazz tackled Stepper and they started wrestling in the sand, smooshing handfuls of the grit at each other in lieu of using their claws.

“Ain’t a trash pile,” Prowl said, hopping down from the kattumaram and walking past the pair of them with Sundance close behind. “’S th’best boat on Harvest.”

“Gonna win th’Race again,  _ fragging scrap-pile,” _ Jazz spit out the curse in Praxan, “an’ yer gonna be seein’ nothin but m’wake-waves.”

“Not without yer insufferable  _ twin _ y’ain’t, fragger.”

“Don’t need ’er t’beat  _ yer _ sorry aft!”

Prowl shook her head and kept walking, the continuing insults fading behind her.

“So how are you going to steal the journal back?” Sundance asked when they got back to camp. “Can I scratch him?”

“No scratching,” Prowl told her. “It would feel good, but I don’t think it would help.”

Maybe she could just lurk nearby and when Trident wasn’t in his sleeping hollow, cast an unseen servant spell to go in and it.

“Could bite him.”

“Sundance!”

“I  _ could.” _

Prowl sighed. “Yes, you could. But you shouldn’t.” The thought was therapeutic though. “I’m going to go make baskets where I can keep an optic on his nest.”

Baskets were something Prowl  _ could _ do, but not well. She was starting to understand why Polyhexian woven goods — like baskets and ropes and blankets and what sailcloth they didn’t buy from Praxus — were so brightly colored. The weed-fibers they used were just that many different colors to begin with. For blankets and sailcloths, they used all of those different weeds carefully and deliberately to make elaborate pictures, but baskets and ropes were just flecked and streaked all the way through to use up whatever was available, making those items good for beginners to practice on.

It didn’t take long for Crux to join her, laying across Prowl’s lap to “help”. 

“Hi.”

“Hi.” Prowl tickled her with one of the weeds. “Wanna practice with me?”

“I know how t’make rope,” she scoffed, then rolled over. “Are ya gonna watch th’race?”

“Which one?” 

“Th’big one.” She wiggled to get comfortable. “Next sunrise.”

“Th’Tooth Race?” It was the biggest race Prowl could think of. Jazz had been talking herself up to anyone who would listen — or happened to be in her general vicinity — for the last several cycles. She’d won it before,  _ multiple times,  _ and didn’t seem bothered in the slightest that those victories had always been accomplished with Ricochet at her side. Her twin was supposed to be catching a ride back from Hightower to join them on Harvest toward the end of the season, but who knew what that meant to a Polyhexian’s (lack of) time sense? She’d either make it or she wouldn’t. Prowl stretched out one leg so Crux could settle against it more easily. “’Course I am! Chromia said I can sail with her t’git a good view.”

“Can I come with ya?”

“’S Chromia’s boat. Gotta ask ’er yerself,  _ keong.”  _

Crux pouted. “Why don’t y’like bein’ licked? Th’others think it’s okay, an’ y’let that warrior do more’n  _ lick.” _

“I let ‘that warrior’ lick me cuz she’s my mate,” Prowl chuckled, rolling with the abrupt change of subject despite the — to her — personal nature of the topic. “Not everyone likes all th’things, an’ that’s okay.”

“Is,” the newling agreed readily. “But  _ why?” _

“Why don’t some people like all th’things, or why don’t I like all th’things?” Prowl hadn’t been this demandingly inquisitive as a newling, she was quite sure of that. The testers hadn’t been interested in answering questions, and her teachers had assigned her lists of books whenever she’d asked about things. Being demanding wasn’t allowed, even for a princess.

“Both!”

Both. Prowl rolled her optics. “Some people don’t like all th’things cuz people’re all different. As fer me… One’a th’ways I’m different is I’m Prax. Ain’t somethin’ people do in Praxus. Lickin’ an’ kissin’s a Polyhexian thing.”

“Why let that warrior do it then?”

“Your cunning plan to appear distracted is working,” Sundance meowed, licking her tail primly. “Trident just left.”

“My plan worked perfectly. You were paying attention,” Prowl meowed back. “Did Slide,” his familiar, “go with him?”

“Yep!” Sundance moved onto cleaning her ears. “Still wish you’d let me bite him.”

“Pro~wl,” Crux whined.

“So impatient!” In the way, too… sort of. Prowl set down her basket and shifted Crux so she could reach her spell components. “Told ya already. Jazz gits t’lick me cuz she’s my mate. Bein’ bonded’s special t’a lotta Prax.” Working quickly, she cast her spell. She felt the magic shape itself into the unseen servant. It wasn’t a spell she used much in Polyhex, but it was sometimes useful for food-finding, like having an extra set of hands. The servant couldn’t determine the relative edibleness of things, but could be instructed to gather every kelapa or midye inside the spell’s range…  _ or _ go fetch a single book. 

“’S special here too, ain’t it?” Crux propped herself up, watching Prowl’s hands. “What’re ya doin’?”

“Basket weaving,” Prowl said blandly, picking the weeds back up. “Yeah, bein’ bonded’s special everywhere, but it’s special in different ways in different places.”

Polyhex didn’t have books, so there was only one object the servant could possibly grab. Prowl didn’t see anything as it walked without leaving prints in the sand over to Trident’s sleeping hollow, but she did see the book as it was pulled out. Rather than risk it being seen by Crux or anyone else, Prowl instructed the servant to climb straight up into the crystal trees and hide the book. She’d retrieve it as soon as Trident “figured out” that she didn’t have it.

Sundance snickered.

“Prax sounds weird.” Crux grabbed a handful of the fibers and started absently weaving them into a cord that would eventually be braided into a basket or true rope. “What sort’a spirit d’ya think I am?”

“Hmm. Good question. Yer curious, but not destructive enough t’be a kokako,” Prowl teased. And wow,  _ there _ was a thought: Jazz had once been  _ so _ reckless, acquisitive, and destructively curious people thought she was going to be a kokako. “Bet yer somethin’ that flocks together though.” She called her a keong because of how clingy she could be; not just with her, but with whoever she decided to attach herself to for a given activity. Could keong be spirit guides? Prowl wasn’t sure the small, shelled creatures were really social enough for Crux, even if it was possible. “Maybe yer a kawauso.”

“That’s a little like a shipcat, ’cept better at swimming, right?” Crux seemed pleased by that. “I’m lots better at swimming than y’are.”

“Are, an’ that’s one’a th’reasons I thought’a it.” Of course, all of the newlings were better swimmers than Prowl, but Crux wasn’t just good at swimming, she enjoyed it in a way that was more about play than efficiency. Kawauso were incredibly playful, both in the water and chasing each other around on the riverbanks, and they lived in close, very social groups. “Can’t always tell though, ’til yer spirit finds ya. Jazz says people thought she was a kokako, an’ I thought I might be a wheke, but instead we’re both cats.”

“I do like cats.” She held her hand out to Sundance so she could scritch her fingers down her back.

“Cats are the best,” Sundance purred, soaking up the attention. It wasn’t long before Crux had her curled up on her chest, happily kneading her paws against her plating. “She’s smart. I like her.”

Prowl smiled. “I like her too,” she meowed, and continued weaving.

“So why’s th’sky blue when th’water’s red?” Crux asked, appropriately enough, out of the blue. 

Prowl had to pause her weaving so she could concentrate on the answer. She knew it, but she doubted Polyhexian even had the magical vocabulary to explain it properly. Though maybe it did. Polyhexians were very good at magic, moreso than anyone on the mainland suspected. But without a true, fully developed written language, there was no  _ wizardry _ as Prowl knew it, and it had been wizards who had discovered and described so many natural phenomena on the mainland. 

“Water’s red cuz it’s got metal’n salt in it,” Prowl started with the easier, less technical half of the question. “Th’metal’s red, so th’water’s red. ’S’why th’river’s more brown’n black: it’s got more rock than metal, an’ th’rock’s mostly black.”

“Sure,” Crux agreed, picking out red and blue fibers to weave into the segment of cord she was working on. 

“Th’sky’s blue cuz,” Prowl picked her way through the words, “th’air’s a bit like glass. Y’ever seen a rainbow on th’ground when y’were playin’ with a glass bottle?”

“No.” The newling pouted. “No one lets me play with the bottles.”

Probably because they didn’t want them broken accidentally. “’Kay…” Prowl  _ really _ didn’t have the words for things like  _ refraction, prisming _ or  _ lensing _ in Polyhexian. A demonstration with a piece of glass really was the only thing she could think of. “Maybe I can show ya with one’a Jazz’s bottles…”

“Now?” Crux asked hopefully, already halfway to her feet.

“Woah, slow down,” Prowl said, catching Sundance as the newling’s abrupt movement dislodged her. She smoothed her hand along aggravated plating, softening the cat’s irritated growl into another purr. “I’d like t’finish this basket first.”

Crux flopped back down onto the sand, spraying it everywhere, and let out an overly dramatic sigh. Sulkily she picked up her cord and continued braiding. 

“I didn’t say you could stop,” Sundance meowed when Prowl attempted to pick hers back up.

“I can’t weave baskets and pet you at the same time.”

“I know. That’s why you should pet me and forget about the basket.” With an entirely unsubtle strreeeetch, Sundance sprawled out over Prowl’s lap and pinned one of her arms. “You can do that with just one hand, can’t you?”

“Pest.” Prowl flicked the tip of an ear. “The sooner I finish, the sooner I can show her the rainbows.”

“If you  _ really  _ wanted to show her, you’d have gotten up. You’re hoping she’ll get distracted and forget if we stay here long enough,” Sundance purred smartly. “I’m just helping.”

“Pest.”

Prowl felt the puppy sniffing her dorsal plating and the edge of her door too late to keep the second one from sticking its nose right in Sundance’s exposed chest plating. With a surprised hiss, the cat lashed out and flipped herself over, scrambling away and bristling her plating aggressively while the puppy yelped.

“There now. Keep tellin’ ya not t’do that,” the still nameless femme scolded, while the puppy slunk over to her, belly to the ground and tail tucked under it. One of the others in her pack nuzzled it, licking the tiny scratches clean. “One’a these sunrises ’e’ll poke a maoa an’ git a mouthful’a fangs,” she offered to Sundance apologetically.

“Serve him right,” she sniffed.

“Sundance. He didn’t mean to startle you.”

Ruffled plating settled somewhat, though her tail continued to twitch. “Fine. You don’t have to tell them I said that.”

Good, because she hadn’t planned to. “She’ll be alright,” Prowl told their new company. “Wanna weave baskets with us?” 

“Was lookin’ fer Crux,” she said. “Chromia said she was willin’ t’introduce us t’er pack, since she’n I’re th’only pack-leaders ’ere.”

Immediately, Crux brightened from her sulk. “Oh!”

Prowl perked up too. She still hadn’t managed to get a clear answer from anyone when it came to Chromia having multiple spirits. “Can I come?” 

_ “Please,” _ Crux whined.

“Guess so.”

“Ya!” Cord abandoned, Crux leaped up and tackle-hugged the other newling happily. The puppies gathered around, barking and jumping and tackling the two femmes themselves.

“Well I’m  _ not  _ coming,” Sundance said, tail arched high as she walked away. “I’ve had enough dogs for one cycle, thank you very much.”

“Suit yourself,” Prowl called after her, not surprised in the slightest. 

It took a breem or two to untangle the pile of newlings-and-puppies (mostly because neither the newlings nor the puppies were any help at all) and the nameless newling asked her pack to find Chromia. None of these had come forward as her spirit specifically, but absolutely no one doubted she was a turbohound. Even though none of the puppies had ever really been  _ trained _ for tricks or tasks, they seemed to understand her perfectly.

Chromia smiled as they approached her at the edge of the camp. Four other newlings were waiting with her.

“Hey. Curious?” She tilted her head at Prowl, obviously already knowing the answer.

“Am,” Prowl confirmed anyway. “She said y’were gonna introduce th’pack.”

“Yep.” The older femme turned her attention to the younger one and her puppies. “Wanna find us a boar? Or somethin’? Th’pack won’t attack each other, but ’s’better if we give ’em somethin’ t’hunt, or they’ll find somethin’. Know none’a  _ ya,” _ she swept her visor over the assembled newlings, “’ll care what y’sink yer teeth inta, but ’s’better t’share a big kill.”

Implying she thought Prowl would have a problem? Sundance wasn’t there, but Prowl could hear her snicker as if she were. Fine, maybe she would rather not eat certain things… but what did that have to do with Chromia introducing her pack? 

“Um…” The newling looked around the edge of the camp, and at the nearly stripped-of-food forest. “Maybe further out?”

Chromia nodded, obviously expecting that. “Any’a ya… yelp if y’catch a scent.” Everyone yipped or nodded their agreement, even Prowl, though she wouldn’t be scenting anything unless she had her face right up against its plating, and Chromia jogged off into the trees.

For once, it was Prowl’s turn to cling close to Crux. The rest of the group ranged widely as they explored, searching for something sizeable in the over-hunted forest. All Prowl saw were birds and hexbugs, none of which were worth remarking on. 

They jogged and explored for several joors, slowly working their way further and further away from the camp. Prowl ran, determined not to slow the group down, but privately admitted she would have to stop soon.

Then, one of the newlings and several puppies yipped that they had a scent practically at the same time. Chromia howled, the sound indistinguishable to Prowl’s audios from the dubuk howls she’d heard her second night on Harvest. 

The newlings answered, howling themselves, and Prowl’s plating stood on end as the sounds  _ shifted _ from those of a pack of mixed mechs, femmes and dogs to that of a wolfpack. She heard silent feet running all around her, could feel the call of the pack gathering to hunt. Before she realized what was happening, she lifted her own head to answer, howling her own eagerness.

What was happening? Her thoughts felt slowed, pushed aside in favor of an awareness of her surroundings — specifically, the other members of the pack and their quarry. The hunt was on! They were going to catch the… she didn’t even know what they were chasing, but there was an intense sense of  _ excitement  _ and  _ purpose  _ in the air, carried on the howls both physical and spiritual.

She was running. It was easier, somehow, than it had been. The pack moved around her, through her, and she yipped excitedly when they started to converge and she saw another of her own as glimpses through the trees. Her yip was answered by a chorus of yaps and barks that told her they were all here, on the same path and after the same prey. As was right. The pack should work together.

The growls and barks of the pack alerted her that the prey had been sighted only a few breaths before she saw them herself. Large and armored, they didn’t quite look like prey to her, and she huffed her own disbelief, but the scent-trackers in the pack all chorused that  _ this _ was the scent they’d followed!

Well then. 

The bravest pup stalked forward, sniffing and eager, but the pack-leader barked a quick scolding that had him scuttling away from the giant chelipeds an instant before they closed on the pup’s overeager snout. The pack, including Prowl, barked in alarm.  _ Danger. _

Chuffing for attention, the pack-leader circled one of the large prey-things, snarling and harrying it; it scuttled to face her, snapping its claws menacingly. Pack-leader danced out of reach, yipping for one of the pups to attack it from behind while it was distracted. Barking eagerly, two pups did so, one pouncing on its large, armored legs while the other flipped it over to bite-and-claw into the soft underbelly. Teamwork!

The scent of the creature’s energon was stronger than Prowl expected it to be. All her senses were altered in a way that was hard to pin down. Was she the one detecting the scent, or was the pack passing her the knowledge and experience of it? Caught up in the flow of it as she was, there was still a sense of self, of individuality, but focusing on it drew her away from the pack, and she wasn’t ready. They were still hunting!

A heavy claw easily as big as her own hand on an arm almost as thick swung at her. Prowl yipped in alarm, but rather than jumping away she edged around, baiting the thing into position for one of the others to pounce it.

One of the pups cackled as she circled around opposite of Prowl, looking for the right moment to—

_ Pounce! _

The pup leaped forward and swept the creature up and over itself from behind. It tried to bring its legs in, curling upon itself to protect the vulnerable underbelly, but they were wolves, they were strong, and Prowl wrenched the legs away with a strength she didn’t know she had so that the pup could strike the killing blow with her claws-and-teeth.

Around them, the rest of the pack was copying the pack-leader to make their own kills. One by one they took down their prey, reducing the creatures to a messy, haphazard pile of segmented limbs. Not everyone escaped being marked by them, but none of the creatures escaped with their lives, and when the last one went down a victorious howl went up around the pack.

Then for the first time since that first howl, Chromia fell entirely silent and  _ the pack _ faded, leaving Prowl crouched in the dirt, covered in the energon of a giant nijan while across from her, Crux dug into the creature they’d killed without missing a beat.

“What… what happened?” she asked, blinking at the sudden clarity of thought. “What’re  _ those?”  _

“Yummy!” one of the other newlings called out, breaking open one of the massive claws to get at the energon and spongy musculature inside. Nearby, two of the puppies were fighting over the carapace of a leg as long as Prowl’s own leg while a third settled for chewing on one only slightly shorter.

“Got th’right’a it.” Chromia laughed, swinging another one of the absolutely huge claws up off the ground before slamming it down like a club to  _ crack!  _ the shell. She pried it the rest of the way open with her own claws, tearing out pieces to pop in her mouth. “Eat,” she urged. “B’fore there ain’t any left.”

No danger of  _ that,  _ Prowl thought, looking around. There were so many legs! And since when were nijan this big anyway?! She reached out and claimed one of the pieces for herself, drawing a knife to help her with the thick plating. “An’ I thought normal nijan had strong armor.”

Chromia snickered, fingers digging into the pincer to pull out energon soaked mesh. 

Eating her way through the body, Crux pried apart two of the larger plates on the nijan’s back. “Ain’t this like that bit’a Jazz’s armor that covers ’er legs? …Not that I’ve seen th’armor,” she tacked on hurriedly, realizing she’d just admitted to digging through Prowl and Jazz’s things, since Jazz hadn’t worn her armor here on Harvest.

“Is,” Chromia answered, unperturbed. “’S’why we’re gonna be takin’ ’em back with us.”

“T’make more armor?” Prowl gave Crux a Look, but let the transgression slide. She hadn’t taken or broken anything. “Guess that means try not t’wreck th’pieces eatin’ ’em?”

“Ain’t much a pack’a newlin’s an’ puppies can do t’wreck th’pieces we wanna keep,” Chromia drawled carelessly. 

Crux’s optic band lit up in challenge and she pulled off the piece she’d pointed out to start gnawing on it. She let out a disappointed whine when all she managed to do was put some light pits in the surface with her fangs.

“S’pose not,” Prowl acknowledged. She could do more damage with her knife than that, though of course she wasn’t going to. “So… what happened?” she asked again, tucking into the meal. It tasted wonderful. “I felt… I dunno what I felt.”

“That’s m’pack.”

“Th’dubuk that were runnin’ with us? Inside us?”

“Aka.” Chromia dug out another chunk of the spongy mesh and ate it. She licked her fingers clean. “That’s m’power. M’voice summons ’em, an’ th’dubuk’ll give anythin’ that listens th’rage of a warrior — if y’accept ’em.”

A warrior’s rage… “Like Jazz summonin’ th’fishin’ cat? Only fer others,” Prowl realized. That was kind of fascinating, to have that insight into how her beloved fought. The only enhancement magics Prowl had ever experienced didn’t alter her thinking, but the wolves had brought their minds as well as their strength and focus. She’d had some control, yes, but most of that, she now saw, had been the ability to step out of the spirits’ influence. It had been a matter of accepting their priorities along with their power, or neither.

“Exactly like that.” Chromia nodded. “Wouldn’t advise goin’ one-t’one against a spirit-possessed warrior, but that’s why those like me ’ave packs’r swarms.”

“T’overwhelm with numbers.” It was a sound strategy in the right circumstances. “What happens t’whoever yer fightin’ when ya call ’em?”

“Some can hear ’em.” Chromia shrugged. “Doesn’t do ’em any good. Most can’t hear anythin’ but m’voice ’less they’re gonna run with me.”

Made sense, given the magic had an intelligence and direction, just like the mage casting it. And it  _ was  _ magic, for all it defied every Praxan convention for what magic was. “An’ y’said there’s others can do it too? Others with packs’n… swarms?”

“’Course there are,” the older femme said simply. They were both aware of the newlings listening avidly; they were much more trusting of their experiences and senses than Prowl was, and didn’t feel the need to question this point, but they weren’t turning down the information given to them by someone else asking the questions they couldn’t think of yet.

“Swarms’a what?”

Chromia shrugged. “Anythin’ that swarms.”

Not comforting, given the things Prowl knew that swarmed. Of course, going up against a pack of dubuk wasn’t exactly pleasant either, when you weren’t “running with them”. She continued to eat as she thought, looking around at what they’d accomplished in a new light. She was no warrior, and neither were any of the newlings, yet they’d successfully taken down the monstrous nijan with the aid of Chromia’s pack. 

The monstrous swarm? Prowl giggled.

“So can I lick ya if I lick th’fuel off’a ya?” Crux asked around the bit of armor she was still trying to dent with her teeth.

“No.” Primus, what was with her fixation with licking her? “’M not done makin’ a mess anyway.” 

“How ’bout when y’are done makin’ a mess?”

“No.”

Now it was Chromia’s turn to giggle. “Pile up th’shells as ya finish ’em,” she said, tossing her empty claw onto a few other stripped pieces before grabbing another. “An’ eat all y’want. Easier t’carry th’fuel back inside.”

.

.

.

After retrieving it from the tree, Prowl warded her journal so now it would bite anyone but her who opened it. Jazz wouldn’t, because she knew the memories Prowl was trying to “enspell” into the pages, but a thief wouldn’t be so restrained in his curiosity. Probably. She just didn’t want to have to steal it back again.

Satisfied the book was as safe as it could be, she settled in to record her experience with Chromia’s wolves before it was too dark to see her own pen.

She found out the next morning that she’d turned in just before Ricochet turned up. She’d come in with one of the warriors under Jazz’s command, just like they’d planned, bringing with her a rather large pile of foodstuffs and gifts from Hightower. Having become used to the constant bustle of camp — the people, the boats, the ever-present kokako calling to each other and trying to fly off with the kahawai without being caught and eaten — Prowl missed their initial arrival, but she did  _ not _ miss the yelling and screeching of her and Jazz getting into their first (mock…  _ mostly _ mock) fight over which was the greater contribution to the pile of goods: Jazz’s share of their original trade goods, or those from Ricochet’s awesome, bestest, Prax-merchant mate in Hightower. Since they weren’t using their claws, and they were twins, no one bothered to break up the fight. Instead they just hovered nearby, watching and listening to the loud, growled and screeched insults that were half in Polyhexian and half in Praxan.

“Advertising,” Sundance snickered, scratching some sand from her plating.

“Not  _ good  _ advertising,” Prowl replied, though of course here in Polyhex, it was. A scene like that would do them no favors in Praxus, but here? It was drawing attention and an audience, and everyone stopping to listen was getting a good idea what both Jazz and Ricochet — and therefore, Rainclouds — had brought in. And it wasn’t just the  _ goods _ they were advertising. A good half of the crowd were newlings, fascinated by the display of a sort of violence they hadn’t really been exposed to yet. The fight wasn’t quite staged, but Prowl could feel her bond with Jazz humming happily that she and her twin were reunited without any real resentment. They were (mostly) just taking advantage of their twin-status to show off for the future-warriors, making a first impression that would entice them to Rainclouds in general and Jazz’s leadership in specific.

Prowl hoped it would be effective. It wasn’t the kind of politics she was used to, but there was something clever about it nonetheless.

She hadn’t been watching long though, before Chromia and Starviper reached into the fray — something she knew neither would have dared to do if either twin had been possessed by their fishing cat spirits — and yanked them away from each other. “Stop it y’two,” Chromia scolded with a growl; Jazz snarled back, but didn’t fight her. “Tide’s shiftin’. It’s time t’launch th’boats fer th’race.”

“Guess this means yer really gonna whip Stepper now,” Prowl called to them both, waving in greeting to Ricochet. “’E was givin’ ’er slag earlier,” she explained when the darker twin gave her a funny look. 

“Will!” Jazz bounced up onto the kattumaram to get it ready for launch, and Ricochet followed with one last strange look at Prowl. What was that about?

She didn’t get much time to wonder. The brush of a  _ happy-excited _ EM field was Prowl’s only warning before Crux slammed into her with a hug and started tugging her through the crowd. “Hurry up! Don’t want ’er t’leave without us!”

Beside them, Chromia laughed. “Won’t leave without ya. Gonna need yer help t’git underway in this fray!”

Sure enough, the riverbank was incredibly busy when they got there. Everywhere everyone was casting the kattumaram into the water, paddling down the river toward the sea. Prowl did her part helping with their launch, making sure they had room and didn’t run into anyone as they shoved the boat out to where it floated, then took the oar Chromia passed her and got to work steering the kattumaram/keeping Crux from trying to steer the kattumaram.

This wasn’t the first time she’d made this trip. She’d been out to sea fishing with various people enough to become fairly good with a fishing net. But she couldn’t help but recall her first trip up this river, with Jazz, where she hadn’t been able to do anything at all to help. Now she still wouldn’t call herself a competent sailor, but she was a fairly good deckhand!

The transition from river to sea was always interesting. They floated like so much flotsam out of the calm swells of the delta, leaving the shelter of the bakau and suddenly they were in the white foam of the ocean. Oars were put away, sails snapped open, and they leaped out toward the Teeth.

Prowl got out of the way at that point, settling with Crux in one of the hulls. “Y’been all th’way out t’th’Teeth yet?”

Mutely, the newling shook her head. She was entranced by all the colorful sails on the water. She likely hadn’t seen more than two or three boats out fishing at once either, and that only from the shore. It was one of the rare restrictions Prowl had encountered in Polyhex: newlings were supposed to stay away from the boats. She’d been allowed to accompany the adults on their fishing trips from the beginning, but she had Sundance. She was an adult too, in their optics, and as such trusted not to damage the valuable kattumaram or fishing equipment (or herself) like so many kokako. It was only now, at the end of the season, that the remaining newlings were being afforded the same privilege in preparation of leaving with their new clans.

“She looks like you did,” Sundance mewed. “Except you were looking in the water, not across it.” 

“Says the cat who was hiding from the wet under a blanket.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” The cat licked her tail. “Besides it’s not raining now.”

“Isn’t.” It was, in fact, beautiful weather to be out on the water. From what she could tell, it was good weather to be sailing in as well. The wind was crisp and strong without being overpowering; it would give everyone in the race something to work with as much as against.

Once they were out beyond the nearest breakers, the boats split up into two groups: participants, who clustered together at a deep spot just out of danger of dashing into the Teeth, and observers, who strung themselves out along the edge of the reef. Chromia chose their spot and maneuvered them deftly into place, then dropped the anchor and left the sail to join them.

“Carcharhinidae’s watchin’,” she said, pointing. Prowl looked just in time to see a white-tipped sharkticon fin break the surface of the rust-laden water, briefly, before sinking back down out of sight. “’S’a good omen.”

“Is?” Large predators lurking beneath the waves didn’t sound like a good thing to her. The sharkticon god’s relationship with Polyhex wasn’t a bad one — the Teeth were a sign of his favor and protection, guarding the islands — but his children were reminding Prowl of the koka silently stalking them up the river for the harvest.

“Flirtin’ with th’Teeth means flirtin’ with ’is bite,” Chromia explained. “’S’a fun way t’show off… An’ make sacrifices t’th’god. ’Course these sacrifices fight back.” She grinned, flashing her fangs.

“Sacrifices.” Dread settled into her spark. Of all the places she’d seen the footprints of Polyhexian religion, she hadn’t expected to find it here. Now that she looked at the sails again, making a rough line, she could see it all too easily. They — mostly warriors — would race their fragile kattumaram among the Teeth, the ship-killers that protected their islands, risking a similar fate. Those who succeeded would be honored, and those whose boasts surpassed their skills would end up in the water with the waiting sharkticons.

Just like the Praxan soldiers and sailors who were thrown, dead or alive, into the sea for Carcharhinidae’s children to eat.

“Somethin’ wrong?”

“No.” Yes, but no. The Polyhexians didn’t have a problem with what was about to happen. They’d been looking forward to it for at least the last decacycle, and no one had gone out to the reef without knowing what they were risking. It was Prowl’s perspective as a Praxan that made the whole endeavor look barbaric. “Don’t much like t’see people dyin’ is all,” she said, leaving it at that.

Chromia gave her an odd look. 

Prowl didn’t see or, if she did see it, didn’t recognize the signal the racers were looking for to start, but suddenly the milling kattumaram leaped forward, sails filling. Despite her trepidation, her spark lurched in excitement. The Tooth Race had begun.

It was easy to keep track of Jazz and Ricochet, even from a distance. Prowl knew their kattumaram, knew their colors, and she clapped her hands when they overtook several of their competitors right away with a deft tacking maneuver.

As a spectator, the race was both sedate and exciting. The distance turned what Prowl knew could be split-nanoklik reactions into graceful, almost dancer-like movements as the sailors jockeyed for position. From where they were anchored there was no way of knowing where the obstacles were beneath the water, save for a few educated guesses based on where and how the waves were breaking.

Or, of course, if a kattumaram struck something and slowed significantly or shuddered to a halt.

Prowl was reminded how light and shallow in the water the kattumaram were compared to a Praxan galleon when one did just that, bumping into something just beneath the surface. The ones behind it veered off suddenly to avoid both it and the obstacle it had revealed. She could imagine the warrior cursing his luck, but the boat had survived its collision with the reef, much to her relief.

Jazz and Ricochet weren’t in the lead when she looked back to them, but they were in the pack of leaders. Prowl also recognized Stepper’s sail in that group.

“Ain’t a trash pile,” she muttered. 

“Hopin’ someone’ll crash?”

“Hopin’ someone’ll lose with ’is  _ trash pile  _ of a boat,” Prowl huffed. She didn’t want Stepper to get hurt, but she didn’t want him to win either.

Chromia laughed. “Need help plannin’ a theft?”

“Can I?” Prowl shocked herself with her own eagerness. “Jazz already tackled ’im fer what ’e said. Stealin’ wouldn’t be goin’ too far?”

“If ’e insulted ya, y’don’t need yer mate t’avenge ya.”

“But ain’t it— no, it ain’t. If ’e had a problem with two against one ’e shoulda watched ’is dumb mouth.” There was nothing unfair about it.

Sundance’s tail swished. “I could bite him.”

“Ooooh!” Crux turned her attention from the quickly approaching front line of boats. “A theft! Can I help? I’ve only stolen, um, four or five things.”

“Only four or five, huh?” Prowl chuckled. Her first instinct was to say no; stealing was wrong, and newlings shouldn’t be encouraged to engage in such behavior. But that was her Praxan training talking, and if she was listening to that, then she shouldn’t be stealing either… and she was totally going to. “Should make it six then.”

Crux wiggled happily and turned her attention back to the approaching kattumaram, waving to the now tiny but visible figures on their decks.

“Oh!” Prowl grabbed onto Crux as Jazz and Ricochet made a sharp turn. “Are they okay?”

“Fine.” Chromia waved as those following copied the maneuver to avoid whatever it was that the twins had seen. One didn’t turn fast enough, or tried to turn too sharply, and ended up flipping his kattumaram. “Ouch.”

The white-tipped sharkticon fins closed in. Chromia’s hand closed on Prowl’s before she could hurl the spell and help him. “’E’s gotta escape on ’is own this time.”

The warrior’s claws lashed out at the nearest sharkticon, and Prowl heard the growls and snarls that told her he had summoned his own spirit to help him in the fight. Energon stained the water, which frothed around the fray as the sharkticons attacked. 

She was relieved beyond belief when the warrior hauled himself up onto his flipped kattumaram, while the sharkticons turned their feeding frenzy on their injured kin.

“How’s ’e gonna flip it back over?” Crux asked, much more curious than concerned.

“Gonna wait fer th’frenzy t’move on an’ git it closer t’shore where ’e’s got some leverage,” Chromia explained. “We can help with that part,” she added, with a look toward Prowl.

“’S’allowed? Good.” Prowl set her doors with determination. “Will then.”

The second wave of racers passed them, steering around the flipped kattumaram and the still-feeding sharkticons much more easily at their slightly slower speeds. Crux waved to them, and several waved back.

It was amazing how fast the boats could move though, when they were going at their full speed. As soon as they were clear of the accident, the second group of racers took off, all but flying with the wind in their sails. Prowl’s hands curled at the edge of the kattumaram’s hull. She’d been afraid sailing for the first time. Now she wanted to be able to do what they were doing.

She wasn’t sure what marked the end of the race any more than she’d been sure what started it, but she heard the cheers echoing across the water when the first kattumaram reached it. Calling horns sounded up and down the course, announcing the end and the winner.

“Yer mate won fer a fourth time,” Chromia translated with a broad smile before lifting her horn to her lips to pass on the news.

“Yay!” Crux tackled Prowl in a hug.

“Yay!” Prowl let the newling bowl her over and hugged back. “I got th’best mate ever!”

“Do!” the newling agreed excitedly.

Chromia smiled at them both. 

“C’mon!” Prowl reached for her. “Celebrate with us!”

The older priest-mage crouched, then pounced onto the cuddlepile with a playful growl. Crux shrieked in delight, and Prowl felt someone’s fangs nibble-nipping her armor.

“Eep!” Maybe “celebrate” had been a bad choice of words. She’d just wanted to hug, not frag. 

“Y’make th’cutest sounds,” Chromia murmured huskily, which made Crux squirm in budding  _ want. _ Lips brushed against her collar faring, working their way up, and Prowl squirmed too — away from the escalating touches.

“I’ll just be over here,” she said, making a quick escape to the other end of the kattumaram. She’d still have to listen to the “cute” sounds, but a season on Harvest had worn down her shame at eavesdropping. The sounds just meant they were having a good time, and that was a good thing.

Instead of watching them, she turned her attention to the celebrating swirl of sails pirouetting through the waves and the Teeth. She could see Jazz and Ricochet’s kattumaram weaving back and forth, showing off their skill. By Praxan standards, they were being very sore winners, but here, in this setting, the display felt very appropriate.

“She won’t hear you cheering,” Sundance said, peering over the edge of the boat. “Not at this distance.”

“I know. That’s why everyone else is using the tetere.” The air over the sea was filled with music, most of which Prowl still didn’t understand. She still couldn’t play very well either, but she did want to let Jazz know she was watching. While she was puzzling what she might be able to signal anyway — if Chromia would let her borrow her tetere, since Prowl wasn’t carrying her own — a different idea formed in her head. Smiling, she reached into her spell bag. “I’m going to use something else.”

A nanoklik later, her snapdragon fireworks burst high in the air above Jazz and Ricochet.

Their kattumaram did another showy turn in the resulting klik of silence

Then someone else sent a bright flare of spell-light bursting out over the water, and another spectator summoned fire that exploded into colored smoke. The tetere calling resumed, music a beautiful counterpoint to this new aspect of celebration. Prowl was the only one casting fireworks, but the other priest-mages weren’t letting that stop them from adding to the display. What wasn’t to like? It was noise, color, and excitement!

Pleased, Prowl concentrated, and sent off her next firework. It whistled through the air as it travelled its zig-zag path to the spot she’d chosen above Jazz’s kattumaram. This time it exploded into tiny boat-shapes made of sparkles and fire.

Following her example, some of the priest-mages began improvising their own fireworks with illusion spells, fire and light now in a myriad of different shapes, though without the same echoing  _ bang! _ Prowl’s had… Until one did, and Prowl almost squawked in surprise when her own firework was joined by another.

Just one. Knowing this spell took power and practice, Prowl guessed one of the precocious newling casters — like Kindle — had figured out the spell from her own demonstration.

“They learn so fast,” Sundance meowed, watching the sky where the other true firework had burst into life. “It’s amazing.”

“It really is.” Keahi’s Hounds in particular had such a natural, innate affinity for magic that it was astounding. “I wonder why I’ve never seen such a thing in Praxus.”

“I don’t know.” The cat scratched behind her audial flap. 

The makeshift flotilla of spectators began breaking up shortly after the last spell faded from the sky, pulling up anchors and turning back for the island. Chromia and Crux were just finishing up over at their end of the boat, so Prowl went ahead and started pulling up their anchor so they could get underway too.

The feeding frenzy of sharkticons had dissipated, so once Chromia and Crux were done, they helped tow the flipped kattumaram closer to shore where they all jumped in the water to help flip it back upright. It was filled with water and didn’t float very well, but they beached it so that the warrior could start bailing the water out and repair it.

Two more wrecked or flipped boats were towed in by other spectators. Neither one came back with their sailors.

Chromia stroked Prowl’s drooping doors. “Death’s a part’a life. Can’t look away’n pretend otherwise.”

“Ain’t a part’a life in Praxus. Not like this.” 

Chromia stroked her doors again. “Life walks hand’n hand with death. Can’t have one without th’other. Th’livin’ need us now. These warriors, they’re stars.” She leaned in and gave Prowl a soft kiss.

For once, Prowl didn’t immediately pull away. The kiss wasn’t erotic, and even though it was more intimate than she usually felt comfortable being with anyone other than Jazz, it wasn’t  _ bad. _ In a way it was a welcome distraction, because now she had something else to think about besides her sorrow over the sailors who’d returned to the sky. Jazz had asked what kissing Chromia was like… 

Making a pleased hum, Chromia wrapped her arms around Prowl, pulling them close. It was still mostly a comforting gesture, but chest to chest she could feel the faint spark of arousal from the other priest-mage. Was this still okay? Prowl was less sure, but she didn’t stop just yet. She’d been afraid to be intimate with Jazz until Jazz had shown her it was alright; if she was going to give anyone else a chance and see if it was alright with a different partner, Chromia was a good choice. She knew her, she liked her, and Jazz had even said she wouldn’t mind.

The kiss broke, and Prowl saw Chromia’s visor sparkle above her smile before she leaned back in to kiss Prowl’s neck, brief butterfly kisses as she worked her way down and her fingers traced patterns across her doors. She had to be able to feel the hesitation in her field, but she wasn’t letting it stop her, and Prowl tried not to let it stop her either. Gingerly she returned the caresses, stroking over the curves of Chromia’s frame. She was warm, her plating satiny-smooth with the ubiquitous dull Polyhexian finish, and it wasn’t unpleasant, but… 

Prowl let out a soft, distressed whine.

Chromia pulled back. “Y’okay?”

“’M sorry,” Prowl whispered. She just wasn’t the right shape, she wasn’t  _ Jazz,  _ and it felt wrong. 

“Ain’t fun ’less everyone’s having fun,” Chromia said practically. Her hands slid off of Prowl’s doors and into a more supportive and chaste embrace around her shoulders. “Ain’t got nothin’ t’be sorry fer.”

“’Kay.” Prowl gave her a grateful smile. “Do like ya. I just can’t stop thinkin’ ’bout—”

“Jazz?” Chromia guessed, visor still bright with happy amusement. “Yer cute.” Prowl felt her EM field blush at the descriptor. People still called her adorable too, though thankfully no one was using the word “shy” anymore. “Y’still have th’stars in yer optics,” Chromia continued. “Jazz is lucky t’have ya.”

“’M— is,” Prowl said, agreeing with the compliment rather than deflecting that she was the one who was lucky.

“Come on. There’s a feast an’ yer mate t’git to, an’ a theft t’plan.”

Prowl laughed. “Is! No way ’e’s gettin’ away with what ’e said.” Even if he had been soundly beaten for it twice now by Jazz, before on the beach and now in the race. She was going to claim her own compensation!

“So,” Crux asked, trotting over to join them, “does this mean I can lick ya now?”

Prowl stumbled. “What?!”

“Y’were lettin’ ’er do a little lickin’,” Crux pointed out reasonably. “So does this mean I can lick ya too?”

Prowl cursed in Praxan while Chromia laughed. “No lickin’,” she said firmly, glaring at the blue priest-mage. It only made her laugh harder. “We were just tryin’ it, an’ I asked ’er t’stop too.”

“’Kay.” She kicked her foot in the sand dejectedly, then brightened. “Time t’steal somethin’?”

“Time t’steal somethin’.” Stepper was still out with the other racers, but it wouldn’t be long before they were back. Now was the perfect time to see if he’d left anything behind to lighten his kattumaram for the race.

As it happened, all of the racers had left things behind in an attempt to ensure their victory. Mostly food and other “communal” objects; things that technically belonged to an individual, but if they were needed, were shared. It was the way the blankets and tarp that made up Prowl’s sleeping hollow were hers, but she shared them with Crux, and Jazz, and occasionally others just because they were warm and dry and warm and dry weren’t things everyone had. She didn’t want shared objects though. Prowl wanted something personal, something there was prestige in stealing, like jewelry, or weapons.

_Or_ _books,_ she thought, reflexively checking her bag for her journal. It was still there. 

“What’re we taking?” Crux asked when they identified Stepper’s stuff, a bit loudly for Prowl’s comfort. “What’re we taking?” she repeated in a whisper at Prowl’s gesture to be quiet. 

“Dunno yet. An’ y’don’t have ta whisper, just don’t talk so loud.” She would have told her to use an “indoor voice” if it would have meant anything, but Crux’s idea of “inside” was basically “under a cover of some kind”. Most of the temporary shelters in the camp had at least one tarp wall to block wind and rain, but none of them were completely enclosed. “Sundance,” Prowl mewed to her familiar, “is there room for you to slip in and see if he left anything good hidden under the foodstuffs?”

Waving her tail in silent laughter, the cat circled the pile then slipped into an opening while Chromia stood and kept watch. No one was paying much attention to the warriors’ stuff yet, but very soon they’d come to split up all of this food and prepare it for the feast.

“Found something!” Sundance meowed.  _ “Some _ one went and splurged on some new harpoon tips in Hightower.” Prowl heard her familiar moving around in the pile. “Oooh! Fishing floats… and a  _ sword. _ Someone’s jealous of Jazz’s long-knife!” she yowled gleefully.

“That means somethin’ good, right?” Crux had knelt down in an attempt to see what Sundance was doing, and now was looking up at Prowl for confirmation. “Happy meow?”

“Very happy,” Prowl all but purred. “Found us a couple’a options.”

“I vote for the fishing floats,” Sundance meowed, wiggling out of the pile. “Praxan fishing floats are  _ colored. _ And they’re  _ shiny.” _ She pranced in the sand.

“Are.” Prowl wasn’t surprised those were what Sundance had fixated on — cat toys, anyone? — but she was leaning toward the sword. There was a sort of poetic justice to it, especially if he really had gotten it because of the one Jazz had stolen from Arcee. She strolled casually toward the pile. “How far in is the sword buried?”

“Not too far,” Sundance purred, rubbing up against Prowl’s ankles. “Can just reach in and pull it out. But are you  _ sure _ you don’t want the fishing floats?”

“I know  _ you  _ want the fishing floats,” Prowl chuckled, reaching the gap Sundance had used to get into the pile and kneeling down beside it. She could juuuust feel the end of the hilt with her fingertips when she stuck her arm in. “But the sword is more valuable,  _ and  _ more meaningful.” 

Crux walked up beside her. “What’re ya after?”

“’S a long knife. Take a step t’th’right,” Prowl instructed. There was a group of people nearby, and she would obstruct their view if she stood— “No, my right,” she said, and Crux shuffled into the right spot.

“Can ya git it?”

“Almost.” Prowl felt the shape of the gap as she withdrew her hand. It was a straight shot out, she just needed a longer arm. Or a mage hand. Less capable than the unseen servant, but also less complicated, Prowl focused on the simple cantrip and grabbed the hilt of the sword with it. It slid free of its sheath and into her hand in the space of a breath, and she grinned as she stood and tucked it against her side beneath her sarong. “Let’s go. Can take a better look somewhere less open.”

“Somewhere less open” turned out to be under the tarp that made up the roof of Prowl’s sleeping hollow.

From Prowl’s perspective, there was nothing really special about the weapon. Shorter than an Iaconi gladius, it was a standard Praxan xiphos, practically identical to those produced en masse and used by all branches of the Praxan military. As such, it was fairly light on the decoration commonly seen on nobles’ swords, which were as much jewelry as weapons and denoted rank within both the noble caste and the military. But it was steel, rather than steelbone or stone chips embedded in ohe, and longer than any Polyhexian-forged bronze weapon, and therefore quite impressive to both Chromia and Crux.

“So shiny,” Crux breathed, petting the naked blade. 

“Ain’t got a sheath though,” Chromia pointed out. “Why didn’t ya grab that too?”

“Couldn’t get it,” Prowl said with a shrug. “Was stuck in th’pile.”

Chromia nodded, accepting that without question or doubt. “’S still th’harvest season, so we’ll just wrap it in a blanket an’ some hide fer ya t’carry.”

And that was how the sword ended up wrapped in some extra sailcloth and slung over Prowl’s back. It was totally impractical for actually using it, but it did remind Prowl of the first time she’d seen Arcee’s sword in Jazz’s possession. 

Gleefully they all listened for the warriors to return. Most obvious was the fanfare around Jazz and Ricochet as the winners, but specifically they were listening for—

_ “Koka dunged kokako!” _ Stepper’s voice snarled above the rising din of the camp and feast preparations.

“Go on,” Chromia urged Prowl out of the sleeping hollow, while Crux giggled. “Act natural.”

It was a little different — okay, it was a lot different — taking something that hadn’t originally been hers. Prowl felt terribly conspicuous getting to her feet, stolen sword on display. 

“You’re not sorry, are you?”

“No,” Prowl mewed to Sundance, and scritched her ears when she scrabbled up her back to perch on her shoulder. “Not sorry. Just a little nervous.”

Act natural… Naturally, right about now she’d be looking for Jazz to congratulate her. That meant heading toward the largest knot of people. She felt her doors draw up, tensed, as she passed priest-mages and newlings, none of whom reacted to Prowl’s new accessory.

Jazz and Ricochet were at the center of the crowd, passing out goods and accepting congratulations. Jazz saw her first, and practically leaped over their pile to land in front of her, sweeping her up into a passionate kiss.

“Mmph!” Prowl smiled into the kiss as she returned it. Yes. With Jazz, this kind of celebrating was wonderful. “Hi! Y’did it!”

“Did!” Jazz preened. She hugged Prowl fiercely, frame racing. “Huh?” She let go to circle. “What’s this?”

“Um. ’S a long knife.”

Jazz picked her up and twirled her around. “Looks good on ya.”

“Yeah?” Prowl grinned. “Glad ya think so. I stole it fair’n square.”

“Y’did  _ what  _ now?” Ricochet was looking at her funny again. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Yeah?” The darker twin crossed her arms across her chest in challenge. “Who from?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jazz almost sang, giddy, twirling Prowl again. “’S fair.”

“Is. Also ain’t that interestin’.” Prowl kissed Jazz again. “Y’won th’race!”

“Did!” Jazz preened. “Best sailors with th’best kattumaram on th’islands!”

As the winners of the race, Jazz and Ricochet were given honored places at the feast. Hupa and kelapa and so many other things were passed around alongside Praxan mid and highgrade brought back by the warriors. The twins got even more prestige for having contributed to the bounty, and it was clear even to Prowl’s inexperienced optics that Rainclouds had risen to the top of the completely unofficial clan ranking.

An unofficial ranking that suddenly became official when the elders of the clans stood up, sending a hush of silence over the crowd.

“This has been a great harvest,” Comet announced, and the crowd cheered and whistled their agreement. “And now it’s time!”

Cuddled up to Jazz, Prowl watched with rapt attention while the priest-mages bickered and argued over putting differently colored beads into a Praxan cargo crate. Most of them were Praxan plastic beads, for sale in every port city during the trade season, but there were also crystal and shell beads in different shapes in all different colors for each of the clans. What Prowl understood to be an absolute wealth of matching colors went into the crate one handful at a time, each one representing… points, maybe? For each point of status or pride a clan had accumulated, a handful of their color beads went in. In Rainclouds’ favor, Prowl’s affection for the newlings was worth a handful. The ka meli, a handful. Jazz and Ricochet’s victory — their  _ fourth, _ as they were very quick to remind everyone — a handful.

“There’s more beads’n newlings,” Prowl whispered.

“’S fine,” Jazz whispered back. “Th’ratio’s what matters. They’ll draw as many beads as there are newlings once they’re done settin’ th’odds.”

They had pretty good odds, Prowl realized as the deliberations continued. Every clan got one handful just for having representatives present, but not everyone got extras. 

The bickering over the odds lasted until the sun went down and its light was replaced by a wave of light spells. Prowl cast hers, as usual, on her necklace, but kept the brightness dim. She needed to hear more than she needed to see, and was pleased that even when the conversation got heated and the speech sped up, she was able to keep up with it. The whole thing was definitely a lesson in why bragging was important! The more a given point had been gossiped about, the more readily it was accepted for consideration. People who hadn’t accomplished anything worth bragging about, or had been “too shy” about them, didn’t even get mentioned.

Finally the elders proclaimed the odds were set and started drawing out beads for each of the newlings. They already knew how many newlings there were and, rather than calling each of them up and drawing for them one at a time, they simply drew all the beads at once, pulling them blind from the crate until they had enough. 

Then the sorting began, and the newlings watched with a combination of fascination and trepidation. Tonight they would choose their clans.

When all the beads were counted, the results were announced. Most of the clans got two or three newlings. Rainclouds, with the highest odds going into the drawing, got five. Darkwater, also with high odds simply because of their sheer generosity during the season, got even luckier with seven.

Prowl held her breath. Which  _ individuals  _ would they get?

She needn’t have worried. As soon as it was time for the beads to be divided among the new clan members, Crux, bold as she was, dragged the still-nameless newling with the turbohound puppies over to Rainclouds’ elder to be the first to claim their new clan.

“Yes!” Prowl squeezed Jazz’s hand as they watched the elder thread the beads on a pair of strings and loop them over the newlings’ heads. Crux beamed and hugged the elder when she got hers, then rushed over to Prowl.

“Hi!” she squealed, falling onto both her and Jazz in her enthusiasm. “I git t’come with ya!”

The shyer femme and her puppies all joined the sudden cuddlepile much more sedately. Two of the puppies ended up on Ricochet’s lap. “Hi.” 

“Hi,” Ricochet responded first, petting the puppies and her. “Welcome t’Rainclouds.”

“I’m so happy,” Prowl said, hugging them both. 

“I’m Cricket,” the femme responded, her yellow optic band glowing in the dark with the assertion of individuality. Prowl didn’t think her smile could get any bigger.

In groups of two or three, the other newlings chose their clans. To Prowl’s delight, Kindle joined them in their pile, wearing his new Rainclouds bead. “’S’awesome.”

“Is!” Prowl gave him a quick hug, then pulled back to look at him. “Did ya cast that firework before? Out on th’water?”

“Did!” The fire-mage preened. “’S’a nifty spell. I like it.”

“Is a great spell. ’S been one’a my favorites ever since I learned it.”

“Are you going to ask him how he learned it?” Sundance asked, carefully positioned outside of cuddle/crush range. 

Good idea. “How’d ya figure it out?”

“’S’fire.” He wiggled until they were all comfortable. “What’s t’figure out?”

“I guess… fer ya, not much.” Instinctive magic. Part of Prowl was jealous, but the intellectual study of magic wasn’t something she would give up, even for that level of ease and familiarity.

Not everyone chose quickly. Some newlings who had wandered off wound up wrestling over the remaining choice spots as they straggled back in, or trading around so they could go with friends. Prowl, Jazz and Ricochet welcomed the last two newlings to receive Rainclouds beads to their cuddlepile, happy to have them. 

When the decisions were over and the music started, Jazz disrupted the pile to pull Prowl up so they could dance. Spinning out to the flattened clearing now ringed with drummers and other instruments, Prowl saw Stepper glaring at her and giggled.  _ Not _ a trash pile!

“Beautiful,” Jazz whispered, twirling her around. 

“Am,” Prowl whispered back, then smiled. “An’ so’re ya.” She ran her hands up Jazz’s sides, feeling over the planes and curves of her plating. “Just th’right shape.”

Jazz kissed her chevron, adding a lick for good measure. 

It felt good. Jazz’s hands were on her, her hands were on Jazz. It was  _ right _ in every way that trying to kiss Chromia earlier hadn’t been. Other hands reached out to flirt as they danced, but Prowl stepped away, keeping out of reach. She didn’t want them. 

Did Jazz want them? She accepted the touches rather than dodging them, but she didn’t encourage them like everyone else seemed keen to do. Why? 

Needing to know, Prowl tugged Jazz away from the other dancers and into her sleeping hollow. "What’s it mean,” she asked once they were tucked away under the tarp, “‘havin’ stars in yer optics’?”

“Means yer starstruck.” Jazz cuddled up to her, nuzzling and nibbling in a way that Prowl knew from experience could be either sexual or just affectionate. “Can only see one person. All th’rest’re just sparkles’n light.”

“Does it last?”

Jazz shrugged. “Everyone’s different. But ferever’s a long time.”

“Then… what happens when it fades?”

“Life goes on.” Jazz tucked Prowl down against her chest. “What’s wrong, beautiful?”

“Not sure anythin’ is, exactly. It’s another’a those cultural things, I think.” One she was trying not to let bother her. “Do ya have stars in yer optics fer me?”

“Since th’moment I saw ya,” Jazz proclaimed.

She’d already known Jazz had been with others before her. Now she knew she hadn’t been with anyone since her. “But when th’stars fade,” Prowl said slowly, “yer gonna start t’see others again. Like y’thought I’d done with Chromia.”

“Eventually.” Jazz petted down Prowl’s head, over her shoulders and doors. “Beautiful,” her voice turned worried as she repeated, “what’s wrong? Tell me.”

“I’m only now realizin’…” Prowl sighed, curling into Jazz’s arms. “I think I found another thing we didn’t know we needed t’talk about.”

“’Kay,” Jazz agreed easily. “We’ll talk ’bout it.”  _ Whatever it is, _ Prowl could almost hear tacked onto the end of the sentence. “Said I’d do all th’things.”

“An’ yer doin’ ’em so well an’ I love ya so much fer it. Ain’t askin’ ya t’do anything though, ’kay?” It wouldn’t be fair to ask her, but Prowl did owe her an explanation of how she felt about it. “It’s just… bondmates in Praxus don’t take other partners once they’re bonded. I’m guessin’ y’didn’t know that anymore’n I knew bondmates in Polyhex do.”

Jazz made a confused sound. 

“I was surprised when ya asked me if I’d fragged Chromia cuz I’m bonded t’ya. Means I’m supposed t’be loyal t’ya.” For once, Prowl was grateful for the noise of the party right outside the sleeping hollow. It drowned out their conversation, gave them more than the illusion of privacy the tarp gave them.

“Y’are.” Jazz nuzzled her, trying to comfort, even if Prowl could still feel the bepuzzlement in her field. “Y’wear m’paint an’ m’scent. Y’defend m’ an’ our clan. Yer generous an’ lovin’ an’ so very, very smart. Yer everythin’ I could want in a mate.”

“Thanks. I’m glad. But that’s just it — that list’a things ya want don’t include not fraggin’ anyone but ya.”

“Yer frame’n spark’re yers,” Jazz tried to assure, obviously still not quite understanding that there was a problem. “T’share, or not, with whoever y’wish. We’re  _ bonded, _ beautiful. Linked as deep as th’moon’n tides. Thunder’n lightnin’. Th’sun’n daylight. Can’t ask fer more loyalty’n that.”

Prowl’s spark wobbled at the romance in that. It was the kind of poetry Jazz was able to say with utter sincerity, and it never failed to make her melt. “I don’t wanna share with anyone but ya. I tried, with Chromia, earlier, and it didn’t feel right. I couldn’t do it.”

“Yer frame’n spark’re yers,” Jazz said again. She cuddled Prowl close, holding her protectively while she thought. “Is that,” she said, finally, uncertainly, “what’s botherin’ ya? Y’said y’weren’t askin’ m’ta do anythin’, but… It bothers ya that I might?”

Prowl ducked her head. “Yeah. I know from what I’ve seen that if,”  _ when,  _ “ya do it wouldn’t be cuz y’don’t love me anymore, but it ain’t somethin’ Prax couples do unless they’re havin’ troubles. I didn’t know I was expectin’ ya t’interface with just me, an’ ’m not askin’ fer it, but…” 

“I won’t then,” Jazz promised easily. 

She meant it right now, Prowl knew. Perhaps she always would. She might not though, one cycle, and if/when that cycle came, “I won’t hold ya to it. Yer not Prax, and this ain’t Praxus. Ain’t a standard that applies here, even if it exists in m’head.”

“Ain’t gonna hurt ya.”

“I know.” Prowl hugged her beloved. “’M so lucky t’have ya. Yer th’best.”

“Am,” Jazz confirmed, preening.

Prowl giggled. “An’ so modest.” Another Praxan standard she wasn’t going to impose on her mate, except when they were actually in Praxus. “Even if th’stars go outta yer optics, y’shouldn’t interface with anyone when we’re on th’mainland. They’ll expect ya not to cuz we’re bonded, an’ say bad things ’bout us if they think we’re not bein’ Prax-loyal.”

“’Kay.” Jazz’s field turned questioning and her touch more amorous. Prowl shivered happily, loosening her hug so she could move one of her hands down Jazz’s back toward one of the sensitive points along her spinal strut. Jazz mewed—

“Are y’two lickin’ yet?” Crux peeked into the sleeping hollow.

“Eep!” Prowl instinctively tried to duck, even though there was nowhere to go. “No! Yes! What’re ya doin’ here?!”

She crawled into the sleeping hollow. “Tired.”

Prowl groaned. “So yer just gonna sleep here  _ now?” _

“I sleep ’ere all th’time.” Crux snuggled into Prowl’s side, burrowing under her door. Jazz was laughing, the traitor. “Y’two just keep lickin’ if yer goin’ ta.”

_ Thunk.  _ Prowl’s forehead made a soft sound against Jazz’s chest. She could feel her laughing. “Privacy” must be some weird, made-up Prax-word; no wonder she couldn’t find a Polyhexian translation.

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	5. Chapter 5

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Prowl got a break from the newlings on the trip back to Rainclouds. The twins’ kattumaram was a most honored vessel, but it was  _ tiny. _ The three of them barely fit as it was; they definitely didn’t have room to carry newlings (or puppies, though they did get tasked with carrying a litter of shipcats) back with them.

“Nice t’know yer still a lousy sailor,” Ricochet snarked when they reached the end of the river and Prowl stepped aside to help Sundance with the curious cats.

“Nice t’know yer still so kind,” Prowl said blandly. Ricochet was an absolute brat, and this was their first time all on the kattumaram together for an extended period of time. Prowl was determined not to let her get under her plating. 

“She’s just mad that I’m right an’ she’s wrong,” Jazz sing-songed. 

“Ain’t!” 

They stuck their tongues out at each other.

“Right about what?”

“Y’fit ’ere.” Jazz adjusted the sail. “Yer one’a th’clan.”

“Ah.” Prowl’s doors fluttered at the compliment. “Am. An’ a helpful one at that.” She could legitimately claim credit for helping Rainclouds get the newlings they had! So what if she couldn’t sail? Yet. There was plenty of time to learn.

Ricochet made a grumpy noise.

Meanwhile, Prowl decided to take advantage of the fact that she wasn’t expected to help with the boat to sketch out all the things, the shapes and colors and fish and…  _ everything _ under the water. They weren’t slowing, and she didn’t have time to do more than get basic shapes and a few key details down before they moved on, but now she knew what she was looking at, thanks to the fishing trips she’d taken during the harvest season. It was a little work keeping the pages dry with a combination of her mage hand spell and a tarp, and some of her inkstrokes were a little wobbly from the movement of the boat, but it was wonderfully relaxing.

Until Ricochet kicked her out of the sleeping hull so she could rest while Jazz sailed, but Prowl didn’t complain about that.

She did make sure to take special care of the kittens. They were older than Sundance had been when they’d found each other, and much more active. It was difficult keeping them in their basket, but Prowl wasn’t even a little tempted to let them get close to the edge and fall. They were little lives, and were precious. It made her wonder again what the Praxan hot spot was like. Were domestic mechanimals born there too? How did they go from there to the lean, cautious ratters, or the pampered pets, she had only very occasionally seen in Praxus?

Would these be anyone’s spirits?

For that matter, why didn’t Praxus have spirits like Sundance and the other Polyhexian familiars? Or intuitive casters like Keahi’s Hounds? The Polyhexian fire goddess lived in the islands, but on the mainland, Primus was said to reside inside the planet. There was a symmetry of belief there — the spark of divinity, shared with the god of below — so why did Keahi grant arcane magic, and Primus divine… and then only after a prospective priest or paladin was dedicated and trained by another of His order?

“I don’t suppose you happen to have any insights?” she asked Sundance when the cat got in the way of her jotting down her questions.

“Insights on what?”

“What you’re standing on,” Prowl said, lifting her up and away from the pages. “Why the magic in Polyhex is so different from the magic in Praxus.”

“I’m a cat,” Sundance meowed, setting her rump down on the deck so she could scratch herself behind the audial flap, optics dimming in pleasure. “Not a theologian. Ask me to show you where the stars are, and I can do that, apparently, but questions of religion are beyond me.”

“Maybe I should ask Arcee if she knows someone I could discuss the matter with when we get back.” Someone she could safely talk to without having to dance around accusations of heresy. The head of the church in Praxus wasn’t a mech she would call— “Wait. You can show me where the stars are?”

“Was wondering if you’d catch that.” The cat snickered. “Pinfeathers, that kokako spirit, you know who I’m talking about?”

“Yes. Silverstone’s spirit, right?”

“Yep! He’s  _ also _ a star-spirit.” Sundance skittered excitedly, tail lashing. “Here, I’ll show you.” Prowl had to move her book quickly, or have a cat laying on it as her familiar flopped over on her lap. “Right between my ears, that’s Skyside, the North Star.”

“It is?” Prowl stroked over the light speck on Sundance’s dark plating. If that was Skyside, then… Her fingers wandered from one white dot to the next, trying to map out which stars they must represent. “I don’t see it,” she said, though now that she was looking carefully, she was sure the spots weren’t in the same places they’d been before. “But this used to be here, didn’t it?” She scritched the now perfectly black patch on the cat’s neck where she’d had a mark right above her shoulders.

“We’re further south,” Sundance purred. “The North Star is closer to the horizon.”

“Did Pinfeathers tell you where the horizon is in your markings?” 

“My nose. So if I,” she rolled over onto her back, wiggling to entice Prowl to scritch her belly. “These are the ones you’ll see at night.”

Prowl was perfectly willing to indulge her familiar as she tried to orient herself. What she wouldn’t give for her star charts. If she could just find enough reference points to make sense of the three-dimensional cat-shaped map in her lap! “I’ll have to look at night, I think,” she finally said. 

After that, as the cycle wore on, she kept checking, paying closer attention to her familiar’s spotted frame than she had before. In a  _ way _ she hadn’t before, and she did notice, if she checked every few joors, that the spots did move, crawling slowly across her plating as the morning turned to afternoon.

“Everything okay?” Jazz asked at one point. “Y’keep lookin’ over at th’cats.”

“At one cat,” Prowl corrected. “Sundance’s tryin’ ta show me somethin’ an’ I’m workin’ on seein’ it.”

She maneuvered them carefully around an outcrop of Teeth. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Know all her spots? She says they’re a star—” She didn’t have the Polyhexian words for chart or map, so she resorted to Praxan since she knew Jazz knew this one,  _ “map.” _

Jazz tilted her head and regarded Sundance. “Like kerang xin,” star shells, like the one that made the centerpoint of Prowl’s necklace, “in th’sand fer teachin’? I can’t see it,” she said with regret. “She’s yer spirit. Maybe yer th’only one who can.”

“Yeah? Huh. Maybe.” It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. “Y’do make  _ maps  _ sometimes then? I’ve never seen any.”

Jazz wrinkled her nose. “No, yes…“

“She’s talkin’ ’bout a  _ mahere rakau,” _ Ricochet put in grumpily. Prowl automatically tried to translate the new words… a something made out of sticks? “’Cept fer land.”

“I  _ know _ what a  _ map,” _ Jazz snapped back, still using the Praxan word, “is. Just didn’t know it was like a mahere rakau,” she acknowledged with a pout while Ricochet sat up, radiating smug. 

“What’s a mahere rakau?” Prowl asked, looking between the twins for either of them to answer. 

“’S’fer teachin’,” Jazz answered, while Ricochet stretched and squirmed out of the sleeping hull. She took a few kliks to gather the kittens back up into their basket, then went and started digging through their food. “’S’a… Made’a sticks’n shows how t’find islands, if ya’ve never been there.”

“Oh! Sounds useful.” She didn’t need to ask why Jazz didn’t have one though. Her mate knew the sea the way Prowl knew the night sky. Having a reference was occasionally helpful, but not often necessary. “Are there any on Rainclouds?”

“Sure.”

“Great.” She could see one then. 

“Why’re we talkin’ ’bout mahere rakau anyway?” Ricochet asked, surfacing from their food stores with a handful of small, weed-wrapped fish. They were tiny enough to eat whole, and she did, not even bothering to unwrap them first. 

“Sundance’s got th’stars in ’er spots,” Jazz said, even though she couldn’t see them.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.” It wasn’t like it had been  _ that  _ long a conversation. Prowl watched Ricochet, trying to judge whether her mood was more indifferent or annoyed. “Can talk about somethin’ else, if ya want.”

Ricochet shrugged. 

With a knowing smile, Jazz started singing and with a disgruntled look Ricochet joined in, chanting along at specific points. Prowl nodded along with the rhythm, listening to learn the pattern. It wasn’t the first sea shanty she’d ever heard, but it was the first time she’d heard this particular song.

As the sun set, Jazz and Ricochet switched places. Jazz dug out her own meal — ika clusters — and made sure the kittens were fed before coming over to share with Prowl.

“How far is it t’Rainclouds?” Prowl asked, surrendering one of the clusters to a very insistent Sundance. “’S nicer weather than before.” The rains had lessened significantly over the course of the harvest season, and now the stars were coming out without any cloud cover to block them. It was beautiful.

“Git there ’bout dawn, if th’wind doesn’t change,” Ricochet answered.

“Really? I thought it’d take longer.”

“’S’a good wind,” Jazz said with a yawn.

Aww. Prowl rubbed Jazz’s shoulders. “Sleepy?”

Jazz shamelessly cuddled and purred. “Am. Lay down with me?”

“Only if ya lay down with me,” Prowl teased.

Ricochet scoffed.

“She’s just jealous,” Jazz said with a grin, tugging Prowl down to lay in the sleeping hull. Prowl went willingly, snuggling up to her and smiling when Sundance took advantage of the situation to lie down between/on top of them. “Perfect.”

“We need a bigger kattumaram,” Ricochet grumped. 

“Not  _ much _ bigger,” Jazz protested, snuggling into Prowl’s plating. “We won th’Tooth Race again!”

“Not much bigger,” her twin conceded.

“Guessin’ it’s harder t’win with a bigger boat?”

“Bigger boat means a deeper hull,” Jazz murmured. “Deeper hulls need deeper water.”

“Or th’Teeth’ll cut ’em up.” Prowl thought back once again to the wreck they’d passed the cycle they’d arrived in Polyhex. “Don’t want that t’happen t’us.”

“Won’t. Done this plenty’a times.”

Of course they had. Prowl relaxed beside Jazz, absently petting her shoulder as the waves rocked them closer to recharge. Sundance nudged her fingers to get a share of the petting, and Prowl traced the white specks on her plating. She had so many… No wonder she’d never thought of them as stars before. In Praxus, in the cities, there was too much light even at night to see all the stars. Here, though, they spread out overhead in multitudes.

She oriented on the North Star on Sundance’s head and traced out the paths to the nearby stars she was seeing. It was uncanny. Magical. With a little more practice, she probably would be able to read the sky on her familiar’s plating even without the real thing to compare her to.

Eventually, the sea and Sundance’s purrs and Jazz’s breaths and Ricochet’s sea chants lured her to sleep. It was hard to imagine anything more peaceful.

She slept well the whole night through. The sky was just barely beginning to lighten when a sudden, single jerk of the kattumaram woke her. Jazz was already up and out of the hull at her twin’s side by the time Prowl finished cycling on her optics. Whatever conversation passed between them was either nonverbal or lost to the waves, because Prowl didn’t hear them say anything before they leapt apart to maneuver them around the…  _ thing _ looming up ahead of them. 

Shaking herself awake, she tried to get the shadows of grey and darker grey to resolve into an image that made sense. “Is that a ship?”

A  _ Praxan _ ship?

Jazz’s visor flicked back to her. “Ah. Rainclouds’s near th’edge’a th’Teeth.”

“’S’moved since th’last time we came this way.” Ricochet bared her teeth at it. “Supposed t’be further east.”

“Ain’t movin’ again,” Jazz observed.

No kidding it wasn’t moving again. As they sailed around it, Prowl was able to see along the side of the ship — or what  _ had  _ been the side of the ship. Deeper shadows within the dark outline revealed several large holes in its hull. It was listing partly to one side, and a good portion of the stern was hidden beneath the water. Snagged on the sharp spikes of the reef, if Prowl had to guess. 

One of the masts stabbed up toward the sky, its square sail long gone. Another stood much shorter, snapped either in the original wreck or in the face of the elements since. 

“How’d it get here?”

“Wreck’s been caught in th’Teeth ferever,” Jazz said, scampering to the kattumaram’s bow to peer over the edge and down into the water. Making sure the channel was clear? “But it was further east, closer t’th’edge’a Carcharhinidae’s mouth. Storm probly carried it here this past season.”

“Waves’ll bury it soon. Or finish breakin’ it against th’island.”

“Must’a been some storm,” Prowl said, still staring up at the wreck. The light wasn’t very good, but it was good enough for her to see how big the ship had been. It was easily twice the size of the other wreck, maybe more. Unfamiliar as some of the shapes were, it looked a lot like the largest, heaviest ships in Hightower.

“Nothin’s bigger’n th’sea. Moana’ll take more’n Prax boats.”

“There’s islands Keahi’s still buildin’,” Jazz continued. “Moana keeps pullin’ ’em under with th’storms’n tides.”

“Still buildin’?” 

“Aka.”

Figuratively, or literally? Prowl had seen enough truth in Polyhexian mythology by now to not automatically discount such statements, but she didn’t always know how to interpret them. She would have asked, but a gust of wind snapped in their sail and she had to hang on while Jazz and Ricochet focused on steering the kattumaram.

Prowl turned her attention back to the looming wreck. Storms that could toss even so large a ship like it weighed nothing were another thing she’d only heard about in stories, and those mostly since coming to Polyhex. In Hightower, most lost ships were attributed to piracy before natural causes were even considered.

This one…  _ probably _ hadn’t been attacked by Polyhexian pirates. Not until it was already wrecked anyway.

There were odd, intriguing things in the ship’s profile. The design was similar, but what was left of the figurehead on the bow looked more Iaconi than Praxan. But Iacon was landlocked… “Can we come back?” Prowl blurted out, frustrated at how little she could see in the low light. By the time the sun rose, the ship would be behind them. “I wanna look at it.”

Jazz looked up at Ricochet. Ricochet glared back, and they did the thing where they understood what the other meant without words. 

Ricochet sighed. “Fine. We’ll anchor on this side’a th’island so y’two can look.”

Yes! “Thanks.”

The rest of the early morning passed while Jazz and Ricochet bickered over the best place to park the kattumaram for their exploratory detour. In her excitement over the ship, Prowl hadn’t noticed that the Teeth it was caught on belonged to Rainclouds itself. Their destination was just ahead of them, resembling a smaller version of Harvest: lush crystal jungle around the base of a snow-capped mountain rising up into the sky to meet the wispy white clouds. The way they were concentrated around the peak, it almost looked like the clouds were coming from inside the mountain. Jazz wanted to actually land on the island and do some food-finding first, while Ricochet wanted to just anchor the kattumaram not too far from the wreck and get this side trip over as quickly as possible. The bickering turned into a tussle after only a few exchanges; a tussle Ricochet won by — eventually — pointing out that they could food-find just fine on the wreck itself. 

That settled, and with the sun shining in the sky, they dropped anchor and Prowl and Jazz prepared to leave the kattumaram. Ricochet made a point of ignoring them as Jazz tied a pair of sailcloth bags for them to take and secured her harpoons to her back.

“Have fun,” Sundance meowed, staying far away from the edge of the boat. “I’ll just stay here with Ricochet and take care of the kittens while you go play in the wet.”

“You don’t want to come see what’s in there?” Prowl was even more excited now to see the ship up close, knowing they would actually be able to go inside it. “Really?”

“I… do,” the cat admitted. “But  _ swimming.” _

Jazz laughed at the distinctive, complaining, meow.

Aww. “I’ll tell you all about it when we get back,” Prowl promised. Her bigger issue with swimming was lack of skill, not that it was wet, but she’d been practicing! At the beginning of the harvest season she would never have been able to swim over to the wreck from where they’d anchored without relying on the kopapa. Now, though she was sure Jazz could make the swim three times in the amount of time it would take her to do it once, she was confident in reaching the wreck and being able to swim back after without floundering or falling back on a buoyancy spell.

Jazz took one of her showy leaps off of the kattumaram, somersaulted, and dove into the water with hardly a sound. Prowl, much more sedately, swung her legs over the side of the boat and slid in.

_ Splash! _

Her entry was much noisier, but it had the benefit of keeping her closer to the surface. It also gave her the ability to push off the side of the kattumaram to get started toward the wreck.

The sea, even as shallow as it was here, was very different than the river. Rougher and choppier, more like the sea near Hightower except… Warmer. And the water was clearer. Jazz flitted back and forth, mostly under the waves, poking into the crevasses of the reef to food-find, while Prowl paddled steadily for the nearest hole in the wreck.

She could see the figurehead of the ship much better now, but what she saw only confused her. Modern ships used more geometric patterns than true figures, but this one was not only a figure, but what appeared to be an Iaconi frametype. It looked, in fact, like a more masculine version of Arcee. There were other odd things about the ship as well. Prowl had done some research on ship design while levying her arguments for using her dual citizenship as an opportunity for diplomacy, and she knew that Praxan ships sat as lightly as they could in the water. The need for rowers and soldiers and the sheer amount of cargo required to both make their voyages and make them profitable meant they were heavy, cumbersome ships by necessity, but still, they were built as light and fast as possible to escape pirates. After watching the Tooth Race and the other feats of speed and agility Polyhexian kattumaram were capable of, Prowl knew it was useless for a galleon to try to outrun an attack, but still, that was the current thinking: a lighter ship could be rowed faster, making it harder to board. This wreck, however… It was hard to tell how deep it was meant to sit in the water, given how broken it was, but it looked heavy. It looked, in fact, like it had been armored.

That armor had done nothing to protect it against the storms or the reef. Carcharhinidae’s Teeth had done their job.

Jazz swam up to the midye-and-crystal encrusted side of the ship and dove down to look in the hole on the side. She came back up only a few kliks later. “Don’t wanna go in that way. ’S’filled with water an’ y’wouldn’t be able t’see yer way through. ’S better t’go up.” She tested the slippery side of the ship and scrambled up the mats of midye. 

Prowl took a bit longer, first finding a place she could stand solidly, then casting two spells: one, her light spell so she would be able to see inside the ship, and two, a new application of the alter self spell she’d finally worked out to give herself temporary claws (and fangs and better vision in low light) so she could grip the slick surfaces. Only then did she begin scaling the side of the wreck herself, climbing toward a gash that looked large enough to crawl through. She tried to be careful about it; there was more than midye growing on and clinging to the wreck, some she knew would sting or bite, and others she wasn’t sure of but didn’t trust the look of.

When she wiggled through the torn hull she found Jazz waiting for her in a wide open cargo area. It was filled mostly with crystals and critters and weeds and all the other detritus of the sea.

“Y’okay, beautiful?” Jazz asked, concerned.

“Am.” Prowl looked around, reminded of the way the forest had reclaimed the archaeological sites she’d spent time at in Praxus. Was that what this was too? Not a Praxan ship, but a pre-Praxan, Galifarian ship? “Why?”

“Y’got a scratch.” She came over and knelt down to fuss worriedly at the— oh. She did have a scratch. 

“Ain’t that bad, is it? It doesn’t hurt.” Itched a little, now that she was aware of it, but there were only a couple small dots of energon welling up. “I heal faster’n I used to.”

“’Kay.” Jazz wiped the energon away carefully; more didn’t immediately replace it. Really not a deep scratch at all. “Tell m’if y’feel dizzy.”

How likely was that? Prowl just nodded; if it was going to happen, it would happen. She’d already been scratched. So much for not bumping into things. “’Kay. Y’said this’s been here ‘ferever’, yeah? How long is ‘ferever’?”

“Dunno. Ferever.”

Primus, Prowl loved Polyhexian timekeeping. It was so wonderfully precise. She’d never gotten a clear answer when it came to how old was “old” for people either. “I’m wonderin’ if this ship’s from before th’ _ empire  _ broke up,” she explained. Jazz didn’t know a lot about it, but Prowl had told her before how the mainland kingdoms had once been united before splitting into the nations they were now. “Ain’t quite right fer a Prax ship.”

“’Kay.” Jazz plucked a nijan from the weeds covering the floor and held it up, eyeing it critically.

“Not good fer eatin’?”

“Kinda small. Thinkin’a eatin’ it now.”

“Ain’t gonna stop ya.” Jazz didn’t care about the ship or its contents as historical artifacts, so why not use it as a snack bar while Prowl explored? “’M goin’ that way, see if there’s a path up t’th’helm.”

“’Kay.” Jazz tucked away the nijan in her bag and trotted after Prowl. The alter self spell improved her natural balance somewhat, but Jazz was still much more surefooted than she was on the rough, uneven growth, moving swiftly while Prowl had to pick her way through the obstacles. 

Inside the ship Prowl couldn’t see anything to mark it as different than a Praxan ship; at least, nothing that wasn’t covered up by the Rust Sea’s attempt to claim the ship as its own. Moving carefully, she found the original ladder up to the top deck, but it had long since rotted away. She tapped on the wall it had been mounted to, listening and feeling for how solid it was. If it would support her weight without crumbling, then she just needed to find — or make — clawholds to climb it. 

_ Tonggg.  _ The metal rang heavily. Satisfied that it was worth a try, Prowl began her ascent.

It was a good thing she wasn’t squeamish. The wall was solid, but slimy and encrusted with dozens of different disgusting things. Behind her, she heard Jazz following, pausing to pry up whatever little critters she judged tasty from the muck. 

Her arms were straining from the effort and her fingers hurt from having to punch handholds for herself in the metal, but she did make it up to the broken hatch without incident. She pulled herself out onto the listing deck of the ship. Here she could see some of what had made the ship’s silhouette seem strange: the remains of a substantial forecastle rose up ahead of her, much larger than the minimal forecastles on modern ships. Looking behind her she could also see the edge of an aftcastle disappearing beneath the sea, buried in the sand and the reef; a relic of old shipbuilding that hadn’t seen use in… well, “ferever”.

With the angle of the ship, the forecastle looked like it was nanokliks from sliding down the tilted deck to crush her. It was very unsettling, and Prowl fought off a wave of vertigo.

“Rico’n I took a raft out t’explore this thing when we were newlings,” Jazz confided, seemingly unbothered by the odd angles. “More’a it was underwater then. Lots’a fun things t’chase.”

“All th’enclosed spaces t’trap ’em in?” Prowl smiled, imagining the two of them darting around through flooded hallways beneath the deck and chasing things around the largely empty cargo bay. Between the age of the ship and the scavenging nature of the islanders, there hadn’t been a whole lot left. Prowl suspected the same would be true of the forecastle, but she still wanted to look. Maybe get out her journal and sketch some of the architecture… 

“Ow.”

“Ow?” Jazz was at her side in an instant. “What ow?”

“Th’scratch. ’S burnin’.” And the vertigo wasn’t subsiding. “Think it is makin’ me dizzy. What’d I touch?”

Jazz knelt down and put her hand on the scratch, examining it again. Prowl knew her plating was warm, but it felt ice cold. “Ain’t having trouble movin’?”

“Nope.” She’d been partially paralyzed by several things on Harvest, and this didn’t feel the way those had. “Only hurts around th’scratch, ’cept fer the dizziness.”

“Think y’got tagged by th’kohuke,” there was that word,  _ sea gems, _ used in an unfamiliar way again. Seeing Prowl’s confusion, Jazz tried to explain. “Th’crystal that makes up th’Teeth. Somma it can sting.”

What  _ didn’t  _ sting in Polyhex? Prowl sighed. “How bad? ’M I gonna git better on m’own, or do we have’ta go back now?”

“If yer not feelin’ numb anywhere, y’should git better on yer own.” Jazz poked the area around the wound — ouch! — to demonstrate.

“Not numb, just hurts.” Lovely. She was glad it wasn’t the sort of sting that required an antidote or magic healing though. And there was the rest of the ship to explore (carefully!) while she waited out the dizziness. “’S it one y’can git immune to, or will it always sting t’bump th’kohuke?”

Jazz shrugged. “Both. Ain’t that y’can’t tolerate it, but there’s so many kinds…”

“’Kay.” No bumping the crystals then, if she could help it. Prowl took a quick survey of her frame for any other scratches she might have missed. The kohuke was growing inside the ship too, down near the waterline, though there was much less of it here than outside. “Not gonna let it stop me.”

“If anythin’ goes numb we gotta leave,” Jazz warned, but backed off and let Prowl lead the way into the forecastle.

The going was somewhat treacherous. The tilt of the deck, the things growing on it, and the holes in it were all hazards they needed to navigate. Prowl nearly fell backward when the part of the doorframe she’d grabbed onto disintegrated between her fingers, but a few rapid flicks of her doors got her righted. 

“Wow,” she whispered as they reached a smaller room. It was barely recognizable, all overgrown with sea life and— “Are those bird nests?”

“Aka.” Jazz climbed up to them to see if there were any birds or interesting bugs while Prowl looked around.

There wasn’t much left here either. If she had to guess, she’d say the room was either the captain’s quarters, or reserved for honored passengers. There was a shelf about the right height and width to be used as a berth along one wall. A broken table laid against the other, under the windows, which might have at one point had glass panes. It didn’t now, as a koekoea proved by gliding through the opening and then pulling up short of its nest when it saw Jazz. 

“Ah!” Jazz pounced. She and the bird went tumbling through the air as she tried to subdue it before their inevitable crash to the ground.

“Pfft. Cat.” Prowl giggled and sidestepped the tussle to examine the berth. There was something under it, something too regularly-shaped to be natural. She reached under it and tugged, only to find that the whatever-it-was had been attached to the underside of the berth.

“’Ch’fn?”

“Found a box. Eat yer bird.” It felt like the kind of small safe used to lock up valuables. The exterior was covered in rust and teretips, partially blocking the seam of the door. A door that was still present, Prowl quickly noted, and immediately began searching for the latch. Had it been opened? It was closed now, and she felt a thrill at the thought that perhaps there would be something inside. 

If it had stayed closed all of these vorn, it wouldn’t be easy to pry open now. She didn’t have the leverage to hit a lock or hinge until it gave. She did have a door-opening spell she’d learned from one of the combat mages in Praxus after returning from being kidnapped, but she hadn’t anticipated needing to open any doors the last time she’d consulted with Sundance to refresh her spells. It’d probably be easier to just break the whole thing off of the berth…

Reaching around behind it, she tugged to see how firmly it was attached. It didn’t move much, but something popped — ancient welding, teretips, both — and it shifted promisingly. The spell giving her claws had ended, but she had her knives, and she drew the sturdiest one to chip along the top of the box to loosen it further. She half expected Jazz to protest. The weapon-smiths and masters in Praxus would be screeching if any of them had seen her treat a knife such. But no protest came; Polyhexian digging knives were made for such use. 

Jazz’s hand did dart under the berth after a few kliks, from her new perch on top of it, but only to snatch up the discarded teretips, midye, and other things Prowl was dislodging.

The box popped free and fell to the ground with a  _ clang _ that made them both jump and scramble backwards at the unexpected noise. Jazz giggled.

“Oops?” Prowl grinned. “Now I can work on gettin’ it open!”

She dragged it out into the sunlight. It was a beautiful bronze, with a combination of swirled designs and figures embossed on the surface where it wasn’t covered in growths. Maybe it had been painted or inlaid in other colors once, but now it was solid, tarnished metal. While Jazz clucked in approval of the find, she couldn’t know how important it was. Prowl felt a thrill in her lines as she examined the lock.

A combination lock, and completely busted. Rusted shut.

These boxes were  _ waterproof. _

“Yer excited.”

“Am!” She shook it gently, hoping for— “There’s somethin’ inside! I felt it move!”

“A good war-prize?”

“Dunno. Need t’open it’n see.” Whatever it was wasn’t very big, but would be valuable by mainland standards. Jewelry, maybe. Jazz would consider that a better prize than important documents, which was what Prowl would love to find. Either way the box itself was quite the prize. She spent another klik with the lock, then shook her head. “Be easier t’open with magic, but I need Sundance t’help me.”

Jazz nodded. That made perfect sense to her. “Keep explorin’?”

“Yeah.” Prowl repurposed her food-finding bag into a treasure bag and tied the box up so she could carry it. Luckily, the sailcloth was sturdy enough to take the weight. “I wanna see th’rest’a th’ship! Ain’t numb,” she said in an attempt to cover her wince as she stood. The scratch was still painful, but the dizziness wasn’t getting worse and she wasn’t losing sensation.

Jazz touched the area around the scratch again, testing it. “Heat ain’t spreadin’. ’S’a good sign,” she tacked on at Prowl’s questioning look.

“Ah. Good.” Prowl smiled. “No reason not t’keep explorin’ then.”

They didn’t find anything else as exciting as the box. Because she knew what to look for, Prowl was able to identify a few places with embossed panels behind the encroaching wildlife, but they weren’t removable. Neither was what little furniture remained in the other rooms, since it was only still on the ship by virtue of being bolted to it. She satisfied herself with sketches and rubbings of some of the details — a process that fascinated Jazz the first time she did it. Good thing her old spellbook bag was waterproof.

It wasn’t the thorough study she’d have liked to perform. Definitely not what she was teaching her students about how to simultaneously study and respect their site. But this ruin was already so close to falling apart, drifting away or being buried and lost forever, and it had already been ransacked by the Polyhexians, who cared nothing for preserving it further. Prowl had a feeling that if they did return to this wreck, it would be solely to pry up and dig out those plaques so they could use the bronze.

Her spark felt light and excited when they returned to the kattumaram with their respective prizes. Jazz had plenty of food to share, and Prowl had a mystery box!

“What did you find?” Sundance meowed, sniffing at both bags. 

“I don’t know yet, it’s locked.” Prowl unwrapped the box. “Will you help me with the spell?”

“Will!”

Ricochet leaned in and scratched at the layers of tarnish. “Nice bit’a bronze. ’S’a,” she added grudgingly, “nice war-prize, fer a few sunmarks.”

Jazz practically vibrated pride and happiness.

“Wasn’t a waste’a time then,” Prowl said smugly.

“See yer gonna be payin’ fer it though,” Ricochet said with a pointed glance at her leg. “Watch th’Teeth. They bite.”

Prowl did  _ not _ let embarrassment blush through her EM field. Who had ever even heard of a crystal that stung anyway?

“Like y’haven’t gotten bitten by ’em,” Jazz defended, giving her twin a gentle shove.

“That’d be  _ yerself _ yer talkin’ ’bout,” Ricochet snarled back.

“Ignore them,” Sundance advised as their “fight” escalated. “Let’s get this box open.”

With practiced ease she used her twist-pry knife to open up midye and remis-like creatures, trusting Jazz had only picked out things that were edible. Sundance gobbled her share greedily while she helped Prowl memorize the spell. It wasn’t a very familiar one. She hadn’t had much cause to open locked things since learning it, but it was exactly the tool for the job. Once she had the magic firmly in her mind, she used it and the safe popped open without any trouble at all.

“So? What is it?”

“Get out of my way,” Prowl pushed Sundance away from the box so she could actually see inside, “and I’ll tell you.” It had been sealed so she reached inside fearlessly. Her doors went up when her fingers brushed against the cover of— “It’s a book!”

“Really?” Sundance meowed back, putting her head in the way again. “Maybe it’s cursed!” she yowled gleefully.

“What is it?” Jazz abandoned her fight to come over and look. She snatched a teretip from the pile and expertly peeled it out of its shell with her claws. “Prax spell?”

“Dunno!” Oh, this was exciting! “’S old. Real old. I need t’be careful with it.” Gingerly, Prowl lifted the book out of the box. There were some signs of water damage on one corner, but it looked like it had happened before it had been sealed away. She checked the edges of the pages for crumbling; fragile, but not falling apart. 

“Well?” Sundance pawed at her leg. “Is it magic?”

“You can’t tell me?” But she had a point. Prowl’s journal was spelled against strangers opening it; she didn’t need a curse going off in her face. “Hang on, I’ll check.” She needed only a breath to cast the cantrip to detect magic and look at the book with her mage sight. The blue glowing wake-light ink marks on all of them glowed brighter, proving the spell had worked even though the paint’s magic glow was no brighter than its natural one. Satisfied, Prowl turned her sight on the book.

The very edge of some sort of preservation spell — divine, interesting — lingered on the pages, and the inside of the box glowed as though the spell had bled like ink off of the book onto the bronze, but she saw no sign of curses or other malevolent magic.

“Looks safe t’open,” she said, slowly lifting the cover to reveal the first page. “Ohhh…” 

It definitely wasn’t Praxan, or Iaconi, or any of the modern mainland languages. What she was looking at had similarities to those glyphsets, but didn’t match quite them. Her EM field buzzed with excitement. Modern writing had its roots in the ancient Galifarian writing system. That had to be what she was looking at — the common predecessor of the later writing it resembled.

Jazz, considerably less excited, traced the first letter and wrinkled her nose again. The writer, whoever he’d been, had had a deft, precise hand and hadn’t indulged in the flourishes so common in court writing. That made it harder for her to build any emotion-based stories on the quality of the strokes, making it a confusing sort of “spell” for her. Maybe she thought it was about sand. “’S’a stressful spell,” she concluded pensively.

“It might be.” The end was probably stressful, if it was a journal or a logbook. The pages were holding, but Prowl was still careful turning them. Glyphs, glyphs, and more glyphs; all in the same hand, neat and uniform. “’S gonna take me awhile t’work it out.” She could translate Galifarian, but it wasn’t easy. No one was fluent in it any more.

“’Kay.” Jazz gobbled up another teretip. “Ready t’meet all’a th’clan? Th’village is just around th’island a bit more.”

But she had such a fascinating puzzle in front of her! Prowl cycled her vents and forced herself to close the book. “Yeah.” It would be easier to work on a translation when she could scribble in the sand, and if she held them up too much longer, Ricochet would make it impossible to concentrate. Femme was such a  _ pest!  _ “I’ll put it away fer now. Don’t need t’keep th’box,” she said. She wanted to, as another artifact, but it was nowhere near as valuable as its contents, and was considerably bulkier and heavier. She could wrap the book and keep it in her bag next to her journal to protect it, and wouldn’t argue if letting the box go would be more useful than hanging onto it. 

“’S’yers an’ ain’t food,” Jazz explained. “Y’do what y’want with it.”

“Nice hunk’a bronze like that?” Ricochet grinned, showing off her teeth. “Rainclouds has a group’a metal workers who’ll turn that inta couple’a knives fer ya.”

Really? “I’ll think about it.” In the meantime, she was still keeping the book with her journal on her person where it was less likely to get stolen or damaged. She’d learned  _ that  _ lesson once already. “Can put it with m’jewelry makin’ tools fer now.” Could even store some of the tools in it, when it came to it. She tucked the book away where it would be safe, then got up to deal with storing the box. “Let’s go meet everyone.”

Jazz scrambled to take up the sail, while Ricochet settled into the sleeping hollow with the rest of the food. Prowl joined her mate on the deck when she was done, watching as they moved around the shore of the island. She was looking forward to finally seeing her new clan.

.

.

.

“Prowl!” Crux ran up and tackle-hugged her as soon as the kattumaram was secured with the other warriors’ boats. “What took ya so long?”

“Was explorin’,” Prowl replied, rolling with the hug until they were sitting in the sand. Watching with amusement, both twins quickly started stringing the kahawai from the top of the mast to the ground without her. Now on land, with other boats to explore and hunt among, Sundance let the kittens out of their basket to wander to their little sparks’ content. “Did ya see th’big ship on yer way here? Or did ya come ’round the other side’a th’island?”

“Must’a come ’round th’other side.” Crux pouted with disappointment. “Didn’t see nothin’ but birds’n water.”

“’S caught in th’Teeth off that way.” Prowl pointed. “Maybe y’can git someone t’take ya out t’see it later. Gotta be careful climbin’ it though,” she said, wincing as the sand ground against her still-burning scratch. She magicked away the irritating particles, but the injury itself remained. “Probly shoulda wrapped this.”

“Oh! I can help. I know which weed t’use!”

“Clever keong.” She gave her one last squeeze, then let go so they could both get up. “Show me where they are?”

The newling took off running down the beach toward the edge of where the boats were landed and anchored. Prowl followed at a more sedate pace, taking in her new surroundings. There weren’t, objectively, very many boats compared to the number there had been on Harvest. Was this everyone, or were they still waiting on more arrivals? She was getting the feeling she was about to be hit by the difference between her intellectual knowledge that Rainclouds was a “small” settlement and the reality of just how few people there actually were.

“Here!” Crux splashed into the water, swimming out then diving down to retrieve a mat of what Prowl did recognize as the kill-weeds Polyhexians made bandages out of. She rinsed them off as best she could in the salt water, then splashed back up to Prowl. 

“Thanks! This’s perfect.” Once more using magic to deal with the sand lingering on them, Prowl started pulling apart the strands until she had several long strips of the stuff. Crux helpfully let her drape them over her arms while she wrapped her leg, hissing quietly at the initial sting of the weeds against the wound. “Hope it heals fast,” she muttered, tucking in the last end. Her self repair was more efficient than it had ever been before after just one season in Polyhex — though she certainly wouldn’t want to try regrowing any whole parts! — but that didn’t make minor injuries any more pleasant to deal with.

Looking back to Jazz and Ricochet and the kattumaram, she saw that they’d finished with the ribbons and had been surrounded by a dozen or so mechs and femmes. None of them wore sarongs or hikure, and one or two of them had on parts of their extra Polyhexian-style armor. More giant nijan plating? Or something else? Prowl couldn’t tell, but she could see Jazz preening, and she waved as soon as she noticed Prowl looking at them.

“Prowl! Come meet m’war-band, then we’ll git ya set up further in, ’kay?”

Of course they still wouldn’t be sleeping together. Wishing they’d had a little more time on the kattumaram together, Prowl left Crux playing in the weeds and walked over and waved to the small gathering. “Hi! ’M Prowl.”

“Freestuff,” a gregarious mech said, stepping forward to pull Prowl into a hug. “’M’a sea rat.”

“Ember.” Another thumped Prowl on the back enthusiastically. “Keahi’s Hound.”

“Nice t’meet’cha.” She wondered if he’d met Kindle yet, or if the newling had found another Hound to latch onto. Prowl returned the hugs and friendly slaps as they went around the rest of the circle, introducing Sundance when the cat finally deigned to make an appearance.  _ “Satu _ ’re glad t’be here. So who else d’ya sail with, besides m’mate?”

Instead of pointing to anyone, they pulled Prowl over to a cluster of larger kattumaram where several other mechs and femmes were busy at work. There were three boats, each providing a sea home and transport for three or four warriors apiece. Everyone was proud of their boats, showing off the things that made each of them unique, while Jazz and Ricochet just preened that they had the best, biggest war-band on the island!

The biggest war-band. With a grand total of twelve members, counting the twins themselves. Prowl had thought the mechs and femmes here were lieutenants or something, because surely there had to be more warriors in the group! Polyhexian pirate raids consisted of dozens, plural, not  _ a  _ dozen. 

“How do they manage to overwhelm anything?” Sundance mewed from Prowl’s shoulder. “There aren’t even enough of them to make up a full squad.”

“Let alone anything bigger…” One of the things the king had asked her to look into was the possibility of Polyhex lending military support to Praxus — in exchange for compensation as part of the new alliance, of course. Looking at the group in front of her now, Prowl couldn’t see that they had all that much to offer. Polyhexian warriors were some of the best fighters in the world, yes. Jazz had beaten Arcee, a  _ paladin, _ twice! But individual skill wasn’t everything. “They do fight in larger numbers, I know they do.”

“Maybe the whole clan comes together for the raids? She said this is the biggest war-band on the island, not how many there were in total.”

“There would need to be an awful lot of them for them to add up if they’re all smaller than this.”

Introductions and obligatory bragging done, Jazz helped dig out all of Prowl’s “village stuff” — the tarps and blankets and other things Prowl still didn’t all know the uses of that she’d given her in Hightower — and trotted further inland to pick a spot to put it all. 

Prowl expected to see buildings. Not the stone construction common in Praxus, given how Chromia and the others on Harvest hadn’t quite believed that Prax all built caves to live in, but maybe something built out of ohe, or other crystals! Yet while they passed a few small mud-and-ohe structures, it didn’t seem like anyone was sleeping in them. Instead she saw the familiar sleeping hollows dug into the sand and dirt, or tarps strung between crystal trees. If it weren’t for the Polyhexian affinity for bright colors, and the kahawai strung up everywhere, she might have missed the “village” entirely!

“Since y’don’t like sand,” Jazz chuckled, still finding this amusing, “thought y’would maybe wanna try yer bird-nest this time?”

“Th’ _ hammock?  _ Sure.” That at least Prowl had recognized among her things, since Jazz had explained it to her during her swimming lessons outside Hightower. She had no idea how to set it up, but if it meant less sand it was worth a try. She could always dig a hollow if it didn’t work out. “Where’s good fer it?”

Jazz gestured, encompassing the village. “Pick a spot between two crystal trees, bit further apart than y’are tall.”

“Anywhere?” Prowl asked, still not quite used to the lack of personal property here in Polyhex.

“Anywhere,” Jazz confirmed.

Having learned a fair amount by now about judging how sheltered from the rains a potential sleeping spot was, Prowl rejected a couple of locations before settling on one close to a couple of hollows in the ground. A stand of crystals was growing up over them, and there was a space in the lower branches just the right distance apart.

Jazz nodded when she pointed it out, and set down the bundle and rolled out the hammock. “T’set it up, y’…” She went through the entire process of stringing the ropes around the trees, tying them down and pulling the hammock, which looked more like a net than a berth to Prowl, up so it hung securely. Then she strung another rope above and to one side of it between two more branches and draped a tarp over it. Two of its corners got staked down, while the other two hung freely. Jazz showed her how to drape those corners over the hammock (for privacy, was Prowl’s immediate thought, though Jazz’s reason had more to do with better rain cover) or pull them to the side to open up the space for better airflow.

“Thanks fer helpin’ me with it,” Prowl said once she was sure she had it down. It was clearly a task that was easier with two people, even when you knew what you were doing.

Jazz preened and started stringing up the (shorter, but just as sparkly) kahawai that had been buried in Prowl’s village things. Prowl grabbed some as well, helping with the decorations-that-weren’t. It had taken a while for it to sink in that the kahawai really were just meant to occupy the birds with something other than taking apart the boats and sleeping hollows, not for any festive or decorative purpose, but she could absolutely appreciate the necessity. The pests were so persistent that sometimes even the kahawai weren’t enough of a distraction to keep them from doing damage, but without them she’d almost certainly wake up by hitting the ground because one of the blasted kokako had undone the knots holding the hammock up!

Finally Prowl’s new “residence” was completed. It was still just a tarp, and as such didn’t block sight from every angle or sound at all, but it felt like a wealth of privacy compared to a sleeping hollow shared with several newlings, or a blanket pulled over herself on a boat.

“What do you think?” she asked Sundance, who was sitting on the ground looking up at the hammock critically.

“I think it’ll be easier to get in after you do.”

Probably. It was easy to imagine the small cat getting caught in the net-like contraption. 

“Good?” Jazz asked.

“Good.” Prowl stepped back and smiled. “So what now?”

For the first time, Jazz looked uncertain. “Whatever y’want, beautiful. Can show ya th’village, if y’want…?”

“Do want. There’s other people t’meet, yeah?”

“Are.” Jazz regained her bounce. “Take a while t’meet everyone, but they won’t be able t’resist comin’ t’see ya, cuz  _ I got th’prettiest mate ever!” _ she called out, making several nearby people look up at them. Someone let out a whistle of appreciation. 

“Do,” Prowl managed to say, consciously posing to show off despite the blush in her EM field. It still didn’t feel natural to boast like this, but it was getting easier. 

Jazz grinned and tugged her by the hand back toward the gaggle of small round structures. To Prowl they barely looked like buildings at all. They only had a single half-wall going all the way around, a roof of ohe branches, and a simple tarp for a door. 

“These’re fer storin’ chuno’n miso an’ other foods,” Jazz explained, pulling the tarp aside on one and pulling Prowl inside. The pale blue chuno crystals were stored in bags and crates, next to barrels of miso. More crates held long, thin brown crispy things Prowl hadn’t seen before and translucent, dry, thicker strips of… something else.

“What’re these?” Prowl asked, poking them curiously. “They’re in here cuz they’ll go bad if they get wet, yeah?”

“Ah,” Jazz nodded. “Those’re kakaru. These’re palolo.” She patted a crate of the thin crisps. “These caves’re just fer storin’ th’food. There’s cages fer live things, an’ th’bits that make these’re stored closer t’th’priest-mages who oversee it.”

“Are there any caves fer people? Anywhere?”

“Why? Y’wanna cave’a yer own?” Jazz asked, half serious and half teasing.

If she was being honest? “Yeah. But that ain’t why I asked. This’s a permanent settlement, ain’t it? There’s always people here?”

“Island’s our home, yeah.” Jazz tilted her head curiously, like she wasn’t sure where this line of questioning was going. “Can make ya a cave. Ain’t no one’ll stop ya…” Though she sounded a little like she wasn’t sure why anyone would bother. “I dunno how, but it can’t be that hard!”

“Don’t have’ta do that right now,” Prowl said quickly. “I haven’t even tried th’hammock yet! But I thought th’reason fer not buildin’ much on Harvest was cuz no one lives there ’cept durin’ th’harvest season. If there’s always people here t’use ’em here, why not build more?”

“’S’lotta effort. They always need repairin’.” Jazz shrugged off the question. “But fuel needs t’stay dry so…” She gestured to the hut around them.

“So ya don’t go t’th’trouble ‘just’ fer sleepin’ under a roof,” Prowl concluded. There were more reasons than that to have buildings in her mind, but she already knew privacy and property weren’t Polyhexian concerns. Neither were sand or rain. “I’d point out that havin’ walls can keep th’critters out, but it ain’t like y’all sleep at one time.” Someone was always awake, able to keep an unofficial guard even if a true watch hadn’t been set. There had been a few cycles where they’d implemented a watch on Harvest, when the dubuk had gotten more aggressive, but most of the time it hadn’t been necessary. Not to mention the wildlife, the spirits, they invited in, and all the turbodogs, which seemed to roam entirely free in loose packs. “’S it like that here too? Ain’t seen anywhere near’s many people.”

“Rainclouds ’s’a big clan.” Jazz preened, pulling Prowl back out into the sunlight. “Got more’n two hundred people. More’n enough t’need moren’n one fire. But this is the biggest.” She tugged her over to the pit. It wasn’t burning now, but Prowl saw the scorched rocks that showed the pit had been in use for a while. The stripped carbon ohe cores were stacked under a tarp nearby. Next to them, one of the large copper pots with slanted sides she’d seen so many of on Harvest sat upside down so water wouldn’t collect in it. “Same rules as on Harvest: bring somethin’ sometimes, or do other things around th’village, an’ y’can always take food.”

That was good to know, but Prowl needed to make sure she’d heard something else correctly. “More’n two hundred,” she repeated. 

“Yep!” Jazz was undeniably proud of that fact. “Plus six more!”

More than two hundred, plus five newlings and herself. Somehow Prowl was sure that still meant fewer than three hundred in total. And that was a  _ big  _ clan?! She did some quick math in her head. Even if she assumed two hundred mechs and femmes for every clan that had had representatives on Harvest (and some of the clans were bound to be smaller than that!), that still meant that there were fewer than ten thousand people in the  _ entire nation of Polyhex. _

Jazz tilted her head curiously. “Wanna see th’kelapa?”

“’Kay,” Prowl said, then shook herself. That had sounded awfully dazed. “I mean, yeah.”

No wonder Jazz had been frightened by the crowds in the city of Praxus. It was the largest city in the nation of Praxus, and at the last census had had close to a  _ hundred thousand _ people living within its walls.

There was another hut out by the kelapa grove, among the telapak tangan, the footprint crystals. Prowl still didn’t know why the large trees were called that. This grove was tended, cleared of ohe and other crystals, and when Jazz showed her inside the hut, it proved to be filled with the mature kelapa seed crystals.

“There’s so many!” Prowl knew she was smiling, and she even laughed when Sundance zipped past them and leapt up to the top of the pile, dislodging one of the kelapa in the process. “Careful not to bring the whole thing down with you.”

“Won’t!” the cat meowed smugly. “Pick me up!”

Prowl rolled her optics. “That does take care of that problem,” she mewed softly before retrieving her cat. “Tired of walking already?”

“I’ve been looking around,” she purred. “Everything’s so spread out. There’s more fields where they grow crystals full of tasty glitchmice.”

“Not as many glitchmice as there were before you got to them though,” Prowl said shrewdly. No wonder she wanted to be carried, if she’d just eaten. “I’m surprised you haven’t found a place to nap.”

“Not sleepy.”

Sure she wasn’t. Prowl raised her up to nuzzle her briefly, then settled her in her arms. “Someone just got back from th’fields,” she told Jazz. “’M happy t’report y’have glitchmice in th’crystals.”

Jazz snickered. “Such a good shipcat.” She reached over and scritched Sundance between her ears.

Exiting the hut, they almost ran right into a white mech with green and red markings carrying several baskets full of… things.

“Watch where yer goin’ with those!” Jazz said, leaping back farther than Prowl thought was necessary. “Or ain’t they finished?”

“An’ hello t’ya too.” The mech chuckled good-naturedly. “Welcome back! Did ya really spend th’whole season out on Harvest?”

“Did.” Jazz was still eyeing the baskets warily. “Weren’t so bad. Y’didn’t answer  _ my _ question, Wheeljack! Last time y’dropped one’a those we were dodgin’ wera fer three’r four sunrises.”

“Oh, relax! No one got seriously hurt! That time,” he added with the inflection of a long-standing in-joke. “An’ no one’s gettin’ hurt this time. I haven’t finished armin’ ’em yet.”

“Armin’ what?” Prowl asked, peering at the contents of the baskets. One was piled high with unfamiliar crystal chunks, another was full of some sort of powder, and another had dozens of glitchmice capsules, all faintly shimmering with a sheen of oil. “Hi, by th’way,” she said, since he’d made a point of the greeting.

“I call ’em burst jars! I, uh, haven’t perfected ’em yet,” he added sheepishly, winglets flicking in embarrassment. “I’m makin’ some new spells t’try out durin’ th’raids. Experimentin’ with new things.”

“Oh!” Then the baskets were full of spell components. “Yer a priest-mage?”

Wheeljack chuckled. “Am. An aouli warrior, though y’couldn’t git me t’actually go on a raid fer anythin’. Prowl, right? Dunno any other shipcats’n Jazz’s had th’stars in ’er optics fer so long now, she’s barely talked ’bout anythin’ else…”

“Hey!”

“That’s me,” Prowl confirmed. Her doors fluttered happily at being identified. “This’s Sundance,” who was sticking her head out to sniff at the baskets, and Prowl made sure she had a good grip on her. She looked over Wheeljack’s frame, but aside from the very Praxan winglets on his back and the bright stripes of color on his plating (surely they weren’t poisonous like an actual aouli warrior, were they?) she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Maybe he was one of those mages whose spirit manifested internally instead of as a familiar. “Pleased t’meet ya.”

“Wanna help?” Wheeljack hefted the baskets a bit and Prowl finally saw the pair of ketzal tail feathers (the same green as his stripes) hanging off his arm that marked him as a priest-mage.

“Can I?!” 

“Should see yerselves,” Jazz chuckled, and Prowl realized she was leaning forward almost as much as Sundance. 

Wheeljack chuckled and waved Jazz off — making the baskets of components list precariously; Jazz jumped back. “Sure y’can. Wouldn’t’ve said it if y’couldn’t.”

Prowl cast a quick glance at Jazz, worried she’d be upset over being abandoned, but she was smiling. “I know how ya like yer  _ research.  _ Have fun, beautiful.”

“Thanks.” Prowl went over to give her a quick kiss, then turned back to Wheeljack. Sundance squirmed free and scampered up to her shoulder perch, so Prowl held out her hands. “Can carry one’a those fer ya.”

“Here, uh, no. Prolly shouldn’t take that one. How ’bout, uh, this one.” Wheeljack shoved the basket full of glitchmouse development capsules at her.

“Sure.” It was heavier than it looked, but she managed. The capsules had to be full of oil, not just coated in it. “So what’s a burst jar?”

Wheeljack’s visor lit up. “’S’a spell made’a two bits inside’a jar. Throw th’jar an’ th’bits inside mix’n make little bit’a thunder’n lightning. Boom!”

“Meanin’ it’s th’kind’a magic anyone can use once it’s set up? Don’t need t’be a priest-mage t’make it work?” 

“Come on. M’nest’s over here.” He led the way, skirting the edge of the village rather than walking through it. “An’ yeah. Wouldn’t be much point if it needed a priest-mage t’cast it. It’s fer th’warriors t’take on their raids. Only I ain’t quite done with this one yet.”

“How so? Is it not explodin’ like it’s supposed ta?”

“Ain’t. Need t’find a better container. Gotta be strong enough not t’break by accident too.” Wheeljack shrugged. “Here. Put that down anywhere.”

“Here” was a stretch of sand under a tarp strung between crystal trees, piled high with bowls and baskets of various things. A barrel of grey liquid sat proudly in the middle. A small, stone-lined pit and pile of husked ohe gave her an idea of where a small fire would go once lit. 

The scorched trees were not encouraging.

Sundance leapt down and began prowling around while Prowl got the basket of capsules situated. “Careful,” she warned her. The large shallow bowl she’d found to investigate was big enough for a shipcat to fall in, and the contents looked extremely thick and sticky.

“Always careful,” Sundance mewed back, then sneezed as she sniffed the brown substance.

Sure she was.

Wheeljack set his own baskets down a little less carefully. “Keep outta th’barrel, kit. ’S’ashes’n rainwater. Burn holes right through yer platin’. Now,” he turned to Prowl, “want m’ta show ya how t’make all’a this inta burst jars?” 

“That’d be great.” It would either catch her up on what was going on, or give her more specific questions she could ask. Like how did ashes and rainwater combine together to make something that caustic? What was that used for? She grinned. “Put on a show fer me.”

Absolutely delighted to have an audience, Wheeljack started with what Prowl would call the basics. He skipped around a lot, but he told her how to find and gather the reagents, and how — at least as much as he’d figured out so far — to build the mechanisms. There were parts Prowl would have to investigate further later — like the clay pottery, for one; she hadn’t seen any of the clay mills, pottery wheels, or giant kilns ceramics were made with on the mainland — but Wheeljack had some finished examples for her to look at now. 

“They’re kinda rare,” he confided, “cuz they’re a lotta work, so I gotta find somethin’ else fer th’burst jars in the long run, but fer now they sorta work.” 

“An’ glass wouldn’t be any better’n pottery, would it? If th’idea’s t’find somethin’ not too fragile or expensive.”

“Ain’t any glass made in Polyhex at all,” Wheeljack informed her cheerfully. “All’a it comes from Prax.”

_ “All  _ glass is from Praxus?” They didn’t exactly use it for much that she’d seen, but she hadn’t realized it was a purely imported item. “Wow. Guess that makes it worse’n pottery.”

Wheeljack laughed. “Oh yeah. I’d git in so much trouble if I tried t’use glass fer somethin’ like this.”

“What about these?” Sundance asked, liberating one of the oiled capsules from its basket. “You could try— oh! It’s getting away!” She pounced it, but the slick ball shot out from between her paws and she took off after it, batting it through the underbrush.

Prowl shrugged at Wheeljack’s bemused expression. “It makes a good cat toy? Anyway she was sayin’ somethin’ ’bout usin’ th’capsules fer the jars, but those ones ain’t big enough t’fit everything ya need inside.”

“Ain’t. There’re others, fer bigger mechanimals, but th’walls’re thicker too. Maybe if I—”

**_“MMMRRROWWWW!!!!!”_ ** Sundance yowled and Prowl was on her feet, looking for the threat before she even realized it. A greasy ball of cat came streaking out of the crystals, clawing her way up Prowl’s plating. “Get it of! Get it off! Get it  _ off!” _

“Get  _ what  _ off— oh.” Prowl quickly realized what had happened when she tried and failed to get a grip on the flailing cat. She was covered, nose to tail, in a layer of viscous oil. “The capsule burst, didn’t it?”

“Get it off of me! It  _ itches!” _

“I can show y’how t’git t’th’river,” Wheeljack offered.

“’Preciate it. Got any soap?” Prowl asked, knowing that by the time they reached the river Sundance would have the oil all over her as well. 

“Sure.” Wheeljack went and dug around in the space under his hammock and came back with a coal-black, gritty lump. “Mine’s got bits’a stone’n sand mixed in, t’help git sticky stuff off. That okay?”

Sundance wouldn’t like that, but Prowl nodded anyway. “’S fine,” she said, flinching slightly as the wriggling ball of misery in her arms slapped her in the face with a dripping tail. “Thanks for that,” she meowed, resisting the urge to wipe her mouth. It would only spread the oil around, and she could taste enough of it as it was. “Do you think you could hold still until we get to the river?”

_ “Itches!!” _

“I’ll take that as a no.”

Sure enough, by the time they reached the river, Prowl had oil dripping down her head, shoulders, and doorwings. Sundance wasn’t wailing at the top of her vocalizer anymore, but that wasn’t going to last. As soon as they hit the water, she was going to—

**_“Weeeeeeeeeeet!”_ **

Wheeljack laughed. “Seriously? What kinda shipcat don’t like water?”

“This one,” Prowl grumbled, struggling to keep a lid on her own irritation. Thanks to her familiar she was wet, covered in oil, and getting sandy river mud in all her joints. Not her idea of a good time either, thank you very much.

They made quite the impression on the village. Sundance’s yowls and splashes drew a bit of an audience, and Prowl doubted there would be anyone on the island who didn’t know about her fussiness by the end of the cycle. It was a  _ process,  _ getting her clean. It took far longer than it should have because she  _ wouldn’t stay still,  _ whining about how scratchy the soap was, and when she was finally done scrubbing the muck off her cat? The little pest had the nerve to dash off and leave her to finish washing herself, when it was  _ her  _ fault she was a mess in the first place!

“Note to self: work out how to magic away oil.”

On the plus side, without Sundance there pitching a fit, she had a chance to actually look at her surroundings. She’d thought at first that this stretch of river had been cleared of bakau, but saw now that wasn’t quite the case. Some of the trees had been left standing, mostly out in the depths of the river in groups of two and three, where they were used to anchor a collection of kattumaram and canoes like a makeshift harbor. Some, though not all, of the clumps had rope ladders or ohe poles strung from one stand of trees to the next, or to the shore, so people could reach the boats without swimming. A few mechs had even set up their hammocks out in the bakau, near their boats.

She should have expected the commotion to attract Jazz and Ricochet, but she was still startled when Jazz’s arms slipped around her in a comforting hug, drawing her from her contemplation.

“Once yer clean I can show y’someplace t’git warm.” Jazz scrubbed some of the gritty soap over her doors, lathering the unpleasant cleaner as best she could, then rinsing it away with handfuls of water. Prowl was disgusted to see some of her paint flake away with the weak lather. Polyhexian polish had stood up to a full season on Harvest, but the Praxan paint underneath was faded, scratched and obviously done for. “Soak away th’frustration’n grit.”

“That’d be  _ wonderful.”  _ Prowl sighed, feeling up to her optics in both at the moment. She looked and felt terrible. “She better’ve learned ’er lesson ’bout playin’ with Wheeljack’s stuff. I  _ told  _ ’er t’be careful, an’ what does she do? Make a giant mess, then make a giant scene over th’giant mess.”

“Che. Y’call  _ that  _ a giant mess?” Ricochet scoffed from the bank. “Y’barely got anything on ya,  _ princess.” _

Jazz stiffened. “Can flash-bang ’er,” she said softly, ignoring her twin.

“Can?” Good. Prowl didn’t appreciate the inflection Ricochet had put on her title. But if she was going to retaliate for that particular comment, there was a more fitting spell than fireworks. Hiding the movement of her hands so Ricochet wouldn’t know she was up to something, Prowl focused on her prestidigitation cantrip; not to clean, for once, but to make a mess. She wasn’t confident in trying oil without practice, but she was more than familiar enough with campfire smoke to materialize a layer of the sooty dust all over Ricochet’s plating.

_ “What?!” _ Ricochet practically leaped into the air, trailing soot after her, like a scalded cat. She hissed, and the villagers laughed as she dove for the water. 

“How’s  _ that  _ fer a mess?” Prowl asked her when she surfaced. 

Ricochet’s visor narrowed and she hissed, then yowled like Sundance did right before she pounced into a fight. Prowl braced herself—

“Rico, stop.” Jazz calmly stepped between them. “She don’t know yer playin’ yet. Y’pounce ’er, an’ she’ll take it as a challenge.”

“Who’s playin’!” 

They stared at each other. Prowl watched both of their plating bristle, though if they were growling it was too low for her to hear. 

“Che,” Ricochet scoffed, then swept her arm through the water to splash them both.

Prowl turned and blocked the brunt of it with a door while Jazz just ducked, ironically getting even wetter than she would have if she’d just let Ricochet splash her. She started to raise her arm to splash back, then lowered it gently. “Look, if y’were tryin’ t’play, ’m not in th’mood, ’kay?”

“Come with us,” Jazz offered. “Gonna go soak.”

Ricochet didn’t say anything right away. Prowl thought she might accept, but then she took a step back. “Not in th’mood,” she said grumpily, and dove back beneath the water.

Prowl winced. “Did I make ’er mad?”

“Naw. Prolly gonna go pounce Ember or one’a ’er other playmates.” Jazz smiled. “Maybe y’an’ ’er can play later.”

“’Kay.” She didn’t want to really fight with Ricochet again. It hadn’t been easy battling her to keep Jazz, and combat wasn’t something Prowl considered fun in general. “She’s awfully… abrasive.”

“Prickly as a kina,” Jazz agreed cheerfully, splashing out of the river. Now that the show was over, the other villagers were dispersing. “An’ not as tasty.” She giggled. It was apparently a longstanding joke.

“Well I’m certainly not gonna try’n eat ’er,” Prowl said, attempting a lighter tone. Staying frustrated wasn’t fun either, especially over an accident. “So where’s this someplace warm t’soak?”

“Bit’a a walk,” Jazz admitted, offering her hand to Prowl to lead. “But worth it.”

“Then let’s walk.” 

Hand in hand they set off into the forest. There were signs that they were following a trail, but it was a lot like the faint trail to the kelapa grove on Harvest before frequent traffic had worn it into a true path. 

Jazz let go of Prowl’s hand at one point to rummage through the underbrush, then trotted ahead to pick at a line of hexbugs on a crystal tree until Prowl caught up. She didn’t seem concerned by any of the many sounds echoing through the jungle as the village and last sleeping hollow faded behind them, so Prowl tried not to be concerned either.

Even if the ohe and underbrush were as thick as they’d been on Harvest before people had arrived and it was dark under the canopy. 

A haunting laugh stalked their footsteps, making Prowl shiver, until Jazz climbed up a tree to pounce down, startling a kokako into flight. A clear set of wolf — dubuk — tracks crossed the path, freshly imprinted in the soft mud.

“Y’wouldn’t know anyone lived on th’island at all, lookin’ at this place,” Prowl said softly a few kliks later, looking around the completely wild terrain. 

“Hmm?” Jazz looked up from the hole she was investigating.

“There’s nothin’ here that says there’s people on this island. Unless I just don’t know what t’look fer?”

“Trail,” Jazz said simply. “We’re almost there.”

Whatever marked this particular section of the “trail” as one to Jazz, Prowl wasn’t seeing it. The terrain was becoming rockier, and it was harder to see a path with the sparser underbrush. “’Kay,” she said, trusting her mate’s knowledge of the island. Maybe it was scent she was using to navigate the woods, in addition to memory. 

“Here.” Jazz leaped up and scrambled over a large rock. It took Prowl two tries, but she was able to climb up over it as well, and found herself looking down on—

“A lake?” A small one; maybe it would be better to call it a pond, or a series of pools. There was more than one as she looked out over the rocky expanse.

“’S’called a  _ spring, _ beautiful,” Jazz said. She tested the water of the nearest one and shook her head. She climbed to the next, a little higher up, tested it, and moved onto the third. That one met with her approval. “Here. Y’will like this one.”

“Yeah?” What was to like about it over the others? Prowl climbed up beside Jazz, and that was when she felt it: the air above the water was warm. The  _ water  _ was warm. “’S a  _ bath?!” _

Jazz chuckled. She recognized that Praxan word. “Aka.” She lowered herself in and held her hand out to Prowl. 

Bad mood? What bad mood? With a happy squeal, Prowl jumped into Jazz’s arms. Her mate caught her easily, and lowered her into the deep pool. The water smelled faintly of sulfur, but it was mostly clear and it was  _ warm. _

“Someone’s purrin’,” Jazz chuckled.

“’Course! ’M happy.” Prowl let herself go limp, relaxing in the heat. “This’s wonderful. How’s th’water stay hot?”

“Keahi.” Jazz snuggled her.

“Divine magic, huh?” That didn’t translate into Polyhexian. Curiosity prompted Prowl to use her mage sight, but she wasn’t surprised when it revealed nothing. Another mystery… but one that could wait. She was enjoying this too much to move. “’S wonderful,” she repeated. “Thanks fer showin’ me.”

“’Course. Should know ’bout it before we head out.”

“Head out? But we just got here.”

“Y’don’t need t’come,” Jazz said gently, massaging Prowl’s doors. “Me’n Rico’n th’rest’a th’war-band’re goin’ t’Whitesands Island. See if they’ve got anythin’ they didn’t bring t’th’harvest.”

“T’see if…? Oh.” They were going raiding. “Already? Th’harvest season’s barely over.”

“Prolly have stuff bought in Hightower. An’ th’harvest season’s when th’chuno starts bein’ made’n kelapa start bein’ picked.”

In other words, it wasn’t too soon for raiding to be profitable. The problem for Prowl was that it was still too soon not to feel bad about it. Everything on Harvest Island had been cooperative, despite everyone being from different clans. She’d made friends with some of the priest-mages from Whitesands, and she didn’t want to attack them.

“Priest-mages don’t go on raids, beautiful.” Jazz petted her reassuringly.

“No?” Bizarrely that made her feel both good and bad. “I thought…” 

“Hmm?”

How to put it into words? Even inside her head, Prowl wasn’t sure what she had been expecting. None of her original conceptions about what this vorn would be like had survived the harvest season, and she hadn’t stopped to reevaluate the two seasons that followed. “Guess I thought we’d be on th’kattumaram together more. That I’d be goin’ out with ya when ya weren’t here with me.”

Jazz paused, silently rubbing away Prowl’s aches, for a long moment. “We’ll go explore, sail from one end’a th’Rust Sea t’th’other whenever y’want. But as long as ’m on th’island, I gotta lead raids. Gotta bring back what I can fer th’clan.”

“Everyone’s gotta contribute,” Prowl said absently. That was an interesting way of thinking about it: everyone contributed, and warriors contributed by, as Jazz had once put it, bringing back everything that could be found, stolen, or taken. “Ain’t ready t’sail t’th’sunset. I still got too much t’learn… like how ta sail in th’first place.” She looked away. “I’d just be in yer way on a raid.”

“Wouldn’t,” Jazz asserted confidently. “But y’don’t wanna.”

“No. Not now.”

“So stay here’n learn t’sail. Maybe help Wheeljack with ’is… things.” Jazz chuckled. “We’re gonna be usin’ somma th’wera spells durin’ th’raid. See if they work as well when used deliberately.”

“Maybe… maybe we’ll have th’burstin’ jars sorted by th’time y’git back,” Prowl said, effectively agreeing to stay behind.

“M’clan likes ya,” Jazz soothed. “Yer gonna be so busy learnin’ th’ropes, we’ll be back before y’know it. Maybe with some new shiny…?”

“Yer gonna spoil me,” Prowl giggled.

“I am th’ _ best _ warrior on Rainclouds,” Jazz bragged, nuzzling Prowl’s shoulder. “Can’t have a shabby mate.”

“Even if I feel awful shabby right now?” Prowl petted Jazz’s helm. “But that ain’t yer fault. I got th’best mate on the island. In th’whole world.”

“Do.” Unlike so many times, the brag was spoken softly, almost a purr. “Y’ain’t shabby. An’ yer th’only one I can imagine sharin’ a life with.”

“I know th’feelin’.” It was partly responsible for her half-formed assumption that she’d be going with Jazz on the kattumaram. Living separate lives might work for Ricochet and Smokescreen, but Prowl wanted to share hers with Jazz.

“Love ya.” Jazz relaxed into the steaming water, holding Prowl close. Around them, the wilderness still encased them, separating them from any hint of civilization.

It wasn’t such a bad thing now.

.

.

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	6. Chapter 6

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.

.

If Prowl had expected to be bereft, or bored, while Jazz was gone, she would have been severely mistaken. She had more than enough to distract herself with. She threw herself into learning the new rhythms of village life, how they were similar and different than the rhythms of life during the harvest, with an intensity her new clanmates called both admirable and, once again, adorable. 

The first thing that was the-same-but-different was the endless need for food-finding, which now included  _ crops _ to tend and harvest, and captive animals beyond short-term food storage to care for. There were some people whose sole job was to take their boats out to the reefs to catch fish, kakaru, and other sea-foods. When they came back, whatever wasn’t eaten right away was taken by others to turn into the gelled fish and the dried kakaru that was stored in the huts for up to seasons at a time. Even the parts that weren’t edible for mechs were used, either as food for the mechanimals in the baskets and cages, or as components for a staggering variety of crafts.

Prowl found that the best way to learn about said crafts was to offer to help someone with a task and they’d explain it readily in exchange for the extra hands. She and the other newlings, especially her Crux-shaped shadow, all got drafted for everything from helping the potters dig up river soil to be refined into clay, to helping artisans who were making beads from midye and kelapa shells.

At night, in the semi-privacy of her hammock, Prowl recorded what she had learned, and began translating the book she’d found in the wreck. It went slowly, because she didn’t have her reference books on the Galfarian written language, but within the first few pages she was able to identify it as the captain’s log for the warship  _ Skylark, _ one of three ships in an armada led by the flagship  _ Glorious. _

“Were they trying to invade Polyhex? Or did they just get blown off course?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Prowl meowed, pushing Sundance’s nose out of the book so she could wrap it back up and go to sleep. “They were sent on a military expedition of some kind though, and it’s not like Galifar had anything left to conquer on the mainland.”

“Based on what’s left of the  _ Skylark,  _ I doubt they conquered anything but fish.”

“Pretty sure the fish conquered them.” However they’d wound up facing off against Carcharhinidae, the god had obviously been the victor. Prowl hoped the rest of the log would hold more details about their mission and their ultimate fate.

Fascinating as it was, she had to relegate working on the translation to the evenings and not let thoughts of it distract her during the rest of the cycle — especially when she was working with Wheeljack and his occasionally dangerous concoctions! Wheeljack was a brilliant, if somewhat disorganized, alchemist. Learning from him was nothing like working with her own teachers, and she was surprised to see just how much magic he was capable of and the subtle ways it wound through the things he made, leaving them appearing complex but mundane. Carrying the creations of mechs like Wheeljack into battle, it was no wonder Praxans thought Polyhexians didn’t possess real magic, just sophisticated alchemy.

On top of all the things that really were “just” sophisticated alchemy!

When Prowl mentioned wanting to replace her flaking paint, Wheeljack offered to help her. In exchange for the empty wera nest from Harvest, and help gathering the things he needed to make the paints in her colors, he promised to make her the most beautiful femme on the island. Prowl jumped on the chance. 

They spent a full cycle just gathering things. Prowl already had smaller amounts of paint to touch up her smallest accents, so they only had to find the components to make her three primary colors: chalk stones, crystals, and weather-worn shells unsuitable for decoration; charcoal, bone, rock, midye shells, and pitch; red kohuke, a dark red rock, and a specific sort of tiny red hexbug. They traded with the fishermechs for white and red pearls that were irregularly shaped or off-colored, shiny broken shells in white and dark blue, and several kinds of fish. Crystal flowers.  _ So _ many crystal flowers.

Wheeljack made her grind each of the pigments into very,  _ very _ fine powders or pastes, while he processed the hexbugs into their own paste, and extracted a dark ink from the fish. He burned the bones black before he had Prowl grind them, and busied himself extracting dark purple and red colors from buckets of little sea snails he apparently kept just for that purpose.  _ Without _ harming the snails!

All the different kinds of white, black, blue, purple, pink, orange, and red pigments! 

“Ain’t gonna match yer current colors exactly,” Wheeljack warned, once they were done and he was rendering a natural resin into a solvent used as an ingredient in both the paint and the polish that would go over it once they were done, to protect the new coats of color. “An’ our paints brighten in th’sun before they fade, so th’colors’ll change a bit dependin’ on what y’do.” 

“Don’t hardly do anything that  _ don’t  _ keep me out in th’sun, ’cept fer this,” Prowl said, gesturing around his shaded workshop. It was kind of a relief to be under cover at the moment. The midday sun on a cloudless cycle could be brutal, and she’d baked herself into overheating by accident once already. She wondered why she’d never heard of this quality of Polyhexian paint, since some of it was sold in Hightower, then shook off the thought.  _ Praxan _ paints faded in the sun, so what artist would go through the time and expense of acquiring the rarer and more expensive Polyhexian paints from the market in Hightower, then leave their work  _ out _ where it would fade?

Wheeljack chuckled. “Could food-find’n stuff at night,” he suggested, sniffing the pitch mixture. He coughed. “Almost. What kind’a oil y’want yer paint t’be?”

How was she supposed to pick when she didn’t know the difference? She knew enough to work with her detailers in Praxus, but everything here was new to her. “Dunno. Is one kind better’n th’other?”

“Ain’t really better. Different scents, slightly different colors…” He shrugged.

“Whatever’s most durable then,” Prowl said. She didn’t mind doing the work for the repaint, but it was a  _ lot  _ of work. 

Wheeljack dug through his collection of oils until he found the one he wanted. He opened up the painted ceramic barrel and tipped it toward Prowl for her to examine. “Sea-oil. ’S used fer cookin’ most, but it makes a good paint. Doesn’t smell like much though, so lotta mechs choose somethin’ else.”

It really didn’t smell like much. All Prowl could detect was the same salt-and-rust scent of the sea. Sundance’s whiskers twitched at it though, and she backed away with a wrinkled nose. “Smells rotten.”

“It does?”

“Does.” Her familiar gave her a flat stare. “You’re not using that.”

“No?” Wheeljack tilted his head, looking at Sundance; it was  _ still _ weird how others paid attention to her, where Prowl was used to familiars being ignored.

“No,” Prowl agreed. She didn’t want to fight with Sundance over it. The cat could be  _ fussy,  _ and if her familiar didn’t like it because it smelled rotten, it was possible Jazz wouldn’t either. 

“’Kay.” He closed up that barrel. “’Ere.” He pulled forward another.  _ “Sawit _ crystal. ’S’a good base’n we can add others t’adjust th’scent, if y’want.”

“Is that better?” she asked Sundance, still unable to smell anything offensive. It was less metallic, a bit more earthy, but that was all she could say for it.

The cat took a deep sniff. “Better,” she concluded. “It doesn’t smell rotten at least.”

“She approves,” Prowl said to Wheeljack. “Though I git th’impression she thinks it could smell nicer.”

“Well it could! It’s not anywhere near as nice as the stuff back in Praxus.”

“I know, but we’re not in Praxus. We have to use what’s available.”

“Still think you should be pickier,” Sundance sniffed, then sneezed.

“Could make it smell nicer,” Wheeljack said slowly, “but ’s’a lotta work t’make oil. Maybe if y’had a new pot’r somethin’ t’trade…?”

She didn’t have a new pot, but she did have the bronze box from the  _ Skylark.  _ Was that worth trading for this? Sweet-smelling oils were nice, but not very long-lasting. It would probably be wiser to save the box for something more practical. “Long as it ain’t offensive, it don’t need t’be fancy,” Prowl said, petting Sundance to soothe the sting of the compromise. 

“Alright. Let’s git yer old paint off.”

That involved bathing in the river while Wheeljack used salt and sand and his salty, sandy soap to forcibly scrub the old color off her plating. It definitely wasn’t as nice as the more even sanding blocks back in Praxus. The stuff found and aggravated every place where her plating was still healing (would the kohuke sting  _ ever  _ go away completely?) and caused a few new abrasions as well, but Prowl didn’t complain. She was getting thoroughly clean, and she was getting new paint! The end result would be worth the discomfort of the process.

Several watching villagers catcalled to her about the “very scary water”, but Prowl ignored them. She could hardly blame them for thinking  _ satu _ were fussy after Sundance’s reaction to her own bath.

When Wheeljack was satisfied that all of her previous paint was gone, he pulled her back up to his workshop area to finally mix up the paint. Or rather, the first  _ layer _ of paint. The pitch had separated into a clear liquid solvent and a dark brown resinous substance, which Wheeljack fished out and set aside. He mixed some of the solvent with some of the sawit oil, and some of the clear plastic that made up wera nests, until he had half a kelapa shell of the clear “paint”, then started adding the powdered chalk and bleached shells.

Prowl was a little surprised when he started applying the resulting white everywhere on her frame. “’S gotta have somethin’ t’stick to,” he said, responding to the question in her field before she could ask. “Don’t Prax paints need a base too?”

“Do,” Prowl said, belatedly making the connection between what she’d thought was just white paint and primer. “It just looks different.”

It took longer too. Not because Wheeljack was inefficient, but because the Polyhexian paints were much more translucent than their Praxan counterparts and needed several coats to get a similar amount of coverage. Wheeljack mixed up a new batch for each layer, slowly adding in the other white pigments to build up a more luminous, complex color that Prowl found rather impressive. He did the same with the black and red too, starting with the most opaque and plentiful pigments, then in successive layers adding in the others to create more nuanced colors. The black wasn’t just black; it had hints of blue and purple and the shimmer from the midye shells added to the final few coats. 

Even though she’d been the one to grind them up, Prowl was still surprised when he added the pearl dust to the final batches of white and red paint.

“You’re going to be wearing a small fortune,” Sundance meowed, her optics as wide as saucers.

“And no one will even know.” How many of the warriors in Hightower were walking around with pearl dust paint? Not that the ones they’d used had been the most valuable examples, but still. Someone on the mainland might have bought them. The shells and kohuke were valuable too, but at least those had been broken before she and Wheeljack had traded for them. “That a common ingredient fer paints?”

“Sure,” Wheeljack answered absently, concentrating on painting on Prowl’s red accents perfectly. “Gives it a nice shine’n it’s a good use fer th’ones too small’r deformed t’use fer anythin’ else. Wouldn’t want ’em t’go t’waste.”

“Wouldn’t.” Nothing went to waste in Polyhex, even if grinding pearls up for paint seemed wasteful to her. Expensive spell components were one thing; she’d seen (and used) pearl powder in the working of certain magics — and had suspected then confirmed that Polyhexians used pearls and sea gems in their alchemy as well — but no one went around grinding up emeralds or rubies just to make paint. 

…Well.  _ Most  _ people didn’t go around grinding up gemstones for paint. Silverstreak’s favorite sparkleflake probably had genuine flecks of precious stones in it to get the best luster, and Prowl wouldn’t put that kind of indulgence past Mirage, but it wasn’t a common practice.

Wheeljack hummed in satisfaction as he finished up and watched the glowing blue wake-light paint bleed over this final layer of paint. Unlike the palace detailers, he wasn’t the least surprised by it. “Just gotta let that dry, then polish.”

Prowl fanned her doors happily as she looked at herself. What she could see of herself, anyway. She wished she had a mirror! The new colors weren’t quite the same as her old ones, but they were in the same pattern, fresh and neat without chips or scratches. She felt beautiful.

“Not bad,” Sundance meowed, pacing around Prowl to look at her from every angle. “I still think you could have gone with a nicer smelling paint.” 

“Maybe we can make scented oils ourselves,” Prowl mewed back, far too pleased and entranced by the semi-translucent, layered effect of the paints to be concerned with their bland scent. “The polish will mask some of the smell anyway, and you like the polish.”

“Jazz would probably like one that smelled nicer,” Sundance purred solicitously. Her tail waved back and forth. “That’s a thing lovers like.”

“I’m aware,” Prowl said primly, trying to keep the blush out of her field. “You said there was nothing wrong with this one though, right?”

“Nothing  _ wrong _ with it.” She sniffed. “It’s very new. Earthy. But you could have chosen something that smelled like you were ready and wai—”

_ “Sundance!”  _ It didn’t matter that Wheeljack couldn’t understand the cat. Prowl didn’t want to hear her say it! “I am  _ not  _ wearing anything that smells like  _ that.  _ I get enough unsolicited offers as it is!”

“Pfft.” Her familiar sat down in the sand to scratch behind her ear. “You’re no fun. I’m going to go make sparkles with one of the village cats. He’s a very pretty black tomcat and is always ready to fr—”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Prowl squeaked, then flinched when Wheeljack laughed. She pulled her field back in, smothering her embarrassment as best she could. “I won’t stop you, but I don’t need the details, please.”

Standing and shaking the sand off her plating, Sundance waved her tail smugly and sauntered away.

“Missin’ yer mate?” Wheeljack asked, carefully melting the resin he’d separated from the solvent earlier with the clear plastic from inside the wera nest to make a faint, yellowish mixture.

“Am,” Prowl admitted. “Thought we’d have a bit more time together b’fore th’warrin’ started.”

“Storm season’s th’least busy,” Wheeljack mused, adding the solvent one small spoonful at a time, stirring the mixture with a whisk made from wires so that it became frothy, turning white with only the faintest hint of yellow. The polish. “No farmin’r fishin’r as much warrin’.”

“Just reeeally bad weather?” 

“Yup!”

Wonderful. But talking about the weather was less awkward than talking about intimacy, so Prowl encouraged the subject. She only hoped, after the incredible stories he told while he applied the polish and helped her buff it smooth once it had dried, that Wheeljack had been exaggerating for effect. They  _ were _ exaggerations… right?

She continued working with Wheeljack over the next few cycles, not on paints, but on the burst jars. For maximum effectiveness, he explained happily, with none of the secrecy Prowl was used to dealing with from mages on the mainland, they needed a substantial amount of both component liquids, hence the problem with finding jars that were big enough  _ and _ fragile enough to work properly. Eventually he devised a passable but time-intensive method of putting the two reagents into the development capsules of hexbugs, then loading those into glitchmouse capsules, all of which he pre-shattered then glued back together with a sort of wax.

Prowl and Sundance were in charge of gathering all of the capsules he needed, as well as the wax. It was delightful.

Around working on the burst jars, Wheeljack also made more of the alchemical “spells” he’d already perfected: alchemist’s fire, and the artificial wera, poisons, acids, antidotes, antitoxins, and more. These were for raids, primarily, he explained, but also for hunting, defense, medicine, repelling biting or stinging hexbugs, and almost every aspect of village life. Prowl was particularly grateful for the healing ones because, as it turned out, everything really  _ did  _ sting in Polyhex. The very trees had it out for the island’s inhabitants, and Crux came back from a gathering trip one cycle with one of the other villagers, both covered in what looked like acid burns.

“They’re gettin’ closer t’th’village,” Coil said, his vents rattling as he labored to draw in air. “That section’a foothills was clear of ’em last time I went.”

Prowl held Crux’s hand while she cried, wanting to stroke her plating for comfort, but afraid to because of the silica-tipped spines Wheeljack was working to remove. That involved a very painstaking process of spreading a thin glue over the affected plating, then peeling it off.

Leaf, one of the other priest-mages standing by to cast healing spells once it was safe (apparently healing the plating over the spines would just trap the toxin inside), wrinkled her nose. “Ain’t good. I’ll go out t’check th’grove.”

“See if y’can convince ’em t’grow somewhere else,” Wheeljack said as he peeled back another layer of glue from Crux’s arm. 

“Probly won’t be able t’do anything ’bout th’ones already there, but they might agree not t’sprout so close if I carry their seed crystals somewhere else.”

“Y’can  _ do  _ that?” Prowl blurted out, stunned. She’d thought that was a joke!

_ “I _ can’t,” Wheeljack said, examining Crux’s arm to make sure all the almost invisible spines were gone, then spritzing an antitoxin onto the plating there before moving to another section. “Ain’t many who can. Leaf’s special.”

“Why not just git rid’a ’em?” It was a genuine question, not a suggestion. Prowl had been in Polyhex long enough to realize the villagers did have reasons for everything they did… but a hazard like these gympie crystals would never have been tolerated so close to the cities in Praxus.

Coil snorted. “Besides th’fact that rippin’ ’em out’ll just send th’stingers inta th’air an’ we’ll all git ’em in our engines…?” 

Prowl winced.  _ That _ was a lovely image.

“Everythin’s got a spirit,” Leaf said with a smile. She cast a spell Prowl barely recognized as one designed to delay the effects of a poison on Coil, who sighed in relief. It wouldn’t help Crux, halfway through the procedure to remove her spines. “An’ we all just wanna live. If I’m gonna ask ’em not t’grow closer t’us, ’s’only fair I plant ’em someplace else.”

“I use th’seed crystals sometimes,” Wheeljack added, wiggling the capsule of antitoxin to slosh the contents inside, the implication clear: he needed access to the toxin to make the antidote. 

Prowl was grateful he didn’t use them to make raid spells. “But what kinda magic lets ya talk with plants?”

“Talk t’plants spell,” Leaf said slowly, and Crux managed to snicker.

“Hey! Don’t laugh at me.” Prowl flicked her doors to shake off her embarrassment. “Ain’t magic like that in Praxus, or anywhere on th’mainland. Ain’t magic like yers either,” she said to Wheeljack. “Or th’Hounds, or… well, most’a what I’ve seen since comin’ here.” There wasn’t, if she really thought about Sundance as a spirit, rather than just a familiar, even magic like her own.

“Huh?” Wheeljack peeled another layer of glue off of Crux, replacing it with a layer of antitoxin.

“Th’only kinda magic I’d seen before was—” How was she supposed to describe it? “—rigid,” she went with. “Was only so many things y’could do with it, an’ th’only way t’do those things was t’spend time fixin’ th’magic in yer head first,” either by studying spellbooks or praying;  _ neither  _ of which anyone in Polyhex seemed to do, unless communing with their spirits counted as a sort of praying. And not all of them even had to do that.

Wheeljack wrinkled his nose, making his facial markings twitch. “Weird.”

“Not t’me. T’me, talkin’ t’plants is weird.” Prowl had to grin though. “An’ awesome.”

Leaf preened. Rightly, if she was one of the few who could cast such a spell. The respect the other villagers gave her and the authority she acted with made a bit more sense to Prowl now.

Wheeljack finished up the last layer of glue and peeled it off, sprinkling the antitoxin on the last of Crux’s plating. Leaf quickly cast the healing spell. “Yer good.”

No sooner did she have the all-clear than Prowl had an armful of shaking newling. She positioned her arms carefully and held her, rocking gently. “Y’did good,” she told her.

“It hurt a lot,” Crux whined while Wheeljack got to work repeating the process to remove the spines from Coil.

“I know.” It looked like it still hurt to some extent, and Prowl wished there was more she could do to make it fade. “But hurt goes away. Yer gonna be alright.”

“Will,” Leaf agreed gently. “’S’painful, but a healthy femme ain’t gonna die from a gympie.”

“Felt like I was gonna die,” Crux cried.

“But ya didn’t,” Wheeljack said, painting a layer of glue over Coil’s leg. “Long as ya don’t die, that’s what counts.”

As if to mock his words, Prowl’s doors went up sharply at the sound of an alarm call.

“Raid,” Wheeljack said before Prowl could ask what that specific call meant. He and Leaf both stood, magic already sparkling at her fingertips while he grabbed several of his spells, all packed into small capsules.

“We’re bein’ attacked?”

“Aka. Haven’t landed yet. Th’warnin’s comin’ from th’fishin’ boats. May turn back now that th’alarm’s been raised.” Wheeljack finished gathering his things, “Come on,” and took off toward the center of the village.

“I can’t hug ya still covered in spines, but y’can stay with me,” Coil said, holding out a hand to Crux. “C’mere. Let Prowl help defend th’village.”

Reluctantly, Crux let go of her and Prowl was able to get up. “I’ll be back,” she promised, then set off after Leaf and Wheeljack. If defending the village was what she was supposed to do, then she would do it.

Nothing was happening yet. Other villagers and priest-mages were taking up positions — behind and in trees — while three boats Prowl didn’t recognize drifted out in the water. Maybe they were debating if it was worth attacking a prepared village?

“You should find something to climb,” Sundance advised, appearing by her side. “Or at least something to hide behind. If they do come ashore, they’ll be like Jazz when her spirit possesses her.”

Ack. Good point. Prowl found an unoccupied tree and made her way up into the canopy where she could lob spells without compromising the distance between herself and any opponents. She was no match for a warrior like that in close combat.

The three boats lingered, and it seemed to take forever for them to decide what they should do. It was tense, made even moreso by the anxiousness of the spirit animals. Dogs and at least one dubuk spirit growled and barked, while smaller canines yipped. Birds of all kinds squawked, while the kokako waited, for once patiently. That was especially eerie, and Prowl remembered from several stories that kokako enjoyed eating carrion.

Finally though, the oars dipped into the water. Still not accustomed to just how fast the kattumaram could move when their sailors wanted, Prowl was caught off guard when they landed on the beach. The warriors — ten of them — jumped out and splashed in the surf, running for the cover of the trees without even bothering to anchor their boats.

Thinking first to hinder them, Prowl opened with her web spell. The sticky strands flew toward the nearest warrior, meant to tangle him and trap him at the edge of the trees. Prowl heard him squawk indignantly as he struggled, then he let out a low, deep growl that sent chills up her spinal struts. Other hindering spells lashed out from other priest-mages, covering the incoming warriors in grease. Thorny crystal vines grew in an instant, covering the ground and entangling the warriors. 

They didn’t catch everyone though. One of the invading warriors reached the nearest hut and threw open the tarp — and leapt back as the village’s various cryosnake spirits tumbled out and struck, agitated at the commotion.

“Can bite them,” Sundance offered from her perch next to Prowl.

“If they try to climb up here, feel free to drop on their heads,” Prowl said, lobbing glitterdust at a trio of warriors all making for the same break in the trees. “Otherwise I’d rather you stay safe!”

“Pfft,” the cat scoffed, watching interestedly. 

Three of the warriors pulled free of the entangling vines. One got caught again immediately; the other two made a break for another hut. 

Only to pull up short when Wheeljack stepped around the hut in front of them. He brandished a pair of the newly completed burst jars in one hand. “Neither’a ya’s a ketzal, are ya?” he asked cheerfully, swiping his claws across one of his green stripes. Prowl saw the green cling to them, dripping. 

The warrior on the right snarled.

“Oooh, I bet he  _ is  _ poisonous!”

“Looks like,” Prowl agreed, suddenly nervous. Aouli warriors weren’t just poisonous, they were lethal. How potent was the poison on Wheeljack’s claws? 

The warriors sure thought he might be lethal. One lunged, then threw himself to the side, rolling to his feet when Wheeljack didn’t move.

“Gonna have t’do better’n that.” Wheeljack chuckled, then dodged as one of them threw a harpoon at him. “Like that,” he said, still laughing, and tossed one of the burst jars in retaliation.

“Prowl!”

Prowl turned her attention back to the others at Sundance’s urgent meow. The mech she’d trapped in the web spell was free, and while the ones covered in glitterdust were impossible to lose track of, they didn’t seem to be impeded as much as she’d hoped. 

If deterrents weren’t working, she would just have to use something stronger.

_ Bang!  _ The first of six fireworks went off in the face of one of the warriors. He stumbled to the side, utterly disoriented. He searched blindly for the source, shaking his head when he couldn’t see well enough to find Prowl.

One of the others wasn’t quite so impaired. She saw Prowl point, and started running toward Prowl’s tree.

_ Bang! Bang!  _ Prowl sent the next two at her, hoping she would stop. Each made her stumble, but she growled, yellow visor terribly focused on Prowl.  _ Prey. _

_ Eep.  _ Holding back her remaining fireworks, Prowl readied another spell. “Don’t jump on her,” she warned Sundance. “Not right away. I want to try something first.”

Sundance’s plating puffed in aggression, growling, yowling at the warrior as her claws dug into the rock-hard crystal tree like it was soft as sand, helping her pull herself up. Prowl waited, shaking inside as she deliberately let the warrior get closer and closer until—

_ Splassssh! _

A jet of water materialised from Prowl’s fingertips, knocking the warrior loose with its force. She yowled like a mechanimal, something avian in the sound, and Prowl wondered fleetingly what spirit possessed her now. 

Looking around in the brief reprieve, she saw that Wheeljack was holding his own against his two opponents, while the entangled warriors were simultaneously fending off a pack of dogs and a barrage of thrown spears. Prowl had lost sight of the others, but she didn’t have time to find them because the one hounding her pushed herself back to her feet and shook off the water and started climbing again.

_ Bang!  _ Another firework exploded against her shoulder. She shook her head, her grasp slipping, but her claws were lodged deeply into the tree and she didn’t fall.

“Try something strong—”

_ Crack-kkrrrrsshtt! _

“—er. Like that,” Sundance meowed, body flattened against the crystal branch with her ears folded back. “Warn me next time!”

“I didn’t exactly have time,” Prowl said. Her plating tingled slightly with the spell’s discharge, but both she and Sundance were completely unhurt. The warrior who’d taken the lightning bolt directly to her chest, however, was looking a bit worse for wear.

_ Crack-boom! _ Another firework alerted Prowl that Kindle had joined the battle, even though she couldn’t see him. She was instantly worried — he was just a  _ newling! _ — but also relieved because—

**Boom!**

A fireball went off in the middle of the entangled warriors, thrown by Kindle’s teacher. A klik later saw the warriors limping, or in the case of one who’d been engaging Wheeljack, being carried, away back to their boats.

The villagers didn’t bother harrying their retreat, content to let them go. Prowl stayed where she was until she was certain they were really leaving, prepared to finish off her fireworks on them if necessary. Luckily it wasn’t, and as they turned their boats back out to the open sea, she came down the slightly scorched trunk of her tree to talk with the others.

The healers were taking stock of the injuries. Wheeljack had lost one of his shoulder tires, but no one dared to treat him yet. He was cheerful about that. Spells were quickly being handed out to others — mech and spirit alike — who’d gotten hurt in the raid.

There were, Prowl was relieved to hear, very few serious injuries.

“They weren’t really tryin’. Just checkin’ t’see if our warriors’re gone,” was Leaf’s prediction.

“That mean they’ll be back, now that they know they are?” Prowl asked, concerned.

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Wheeljack placed his hand on one of the stripes on his chest and pulled it away, absently examining the sticky liquid clinging to his fingers. “Beginnin’a th’season’s basically a giant pissing contest. Show-offs. Didn’t git a good story t’tell outta us!”

“Did git away with some stuff though,” Kindle said. “Saw ’em grabbin’ up loose stuff lyin’ on th’ground ’fore we got ’em t’turn’n run.”

“Not enough t’be worth braggin’ about,” his mentor said calmly, “but yeah. They didn’t leave empty-handed.”

“’M sure we’ll manage.” Leaf looked at Wheeljack and sighed. “Yer no good fer finishin’ with Coil now.”

“Ain’t. Not fer a sunmark. Someone else’ll have t’apply th’curatives.”

“I’ll do it,” one of the villagers volunteered, and she and Leaf headed off with another healer to where they’d left Coil and Crux.

“So… yer really poisonous then,” Prowl said to Wheeljack. “How poisonous?”

“Eh?” Wheeljack wiped more of the sticky, green liquid onto his fingers, seemingly just because he could. “Enough t’wreck anyone’s fun, fer sure. Won’t kill most warriors though.”

“I see.” No wonder no one wanted to touch him. Prowl edged away a little bit more. The priest-mage chuckled, unoffended. “What’re we supposed t’do now?”

“Y’hurt?” one of the villagers asked her.

“No.”

“Any’a yer stuff missin’?”

“No.”

He shrugged. “Then just keep on with what ya were doin’ before. ’Less that was borin’,” he said with a grin Prowl just knew meant he was about to ask her to do something with him that would have nothing to do with getting any actual work done, “an’ ya need somethin’ else t’do.”

“Got somethin’ t’do, thanks,” she declined politely. If nothing else, she and Sundance could refresh the spells she’d just used up. She didn’t want to be without them if the raiders, or a different group of them, showed up on their shores again.

She ended up going back to Coil first, just to make sure that Crux was alright before she did anything else. She found the newling, despondent, rearranging a pile of rocks. Her visor brightened when she saw Prowl though. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Prowl knelt down beside her. “How’re ya feelin’?” 

“Yucky.” She pouted. “I didn’t even git t’throw any’a m’rocks.”

Leaf somehow managed to scoff and snicker at the same time. “She’s fine.”

“Can throw rocks next time,” Prowl said, indulging her in a hug. “There’ll be more raids.”

Crux hugged back like a particularly hungry wheke. “It still itches.”

Aww. The poor thing. “Wanna sit with me fer a bit? I need t’talk magic with Sundance.”

“’Kay.”

“Pfft. Yer really gonna fall fer—”

“Shh,” Leaf cut Coil off. “Let ’er. What’s it hurt?”

Prowl resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at them. Just because Jazz would have did not mean she could. She was still here as a diplomat, even if she was doing more observing than negotiating.

Because it was more comfortable in her hammock, without the sand, they ended up all cuddled up together there. Clinging to Prowl, and purring as the older femme pet her helm, Crux in turn petted Sundance while the cat explained the intricacies of the spells Prowl had cast one by one until she had them all fixed in her mind once again.

.

.

.

Jazz’s war-band returned two cycles later, bearing two shipfuls of foodstuffs, blankets, beads, bundles of stripped ohe, and other looted goods. The food was solemnly moved into the appropriate storage huts, while the warriors preened and told the story of their glorious raid, handing out about half of the other goods to the villagers.

“Prowl!” Jazz called when she saw her. She took a step back, then vaulted off of the boat to land in the sand right in front of the startled Praxan. “Got’cha somethin’!”

“Did?” Prowl blinked, curious. 

With a flourish, Jazz produced a bright red chevron ornament from Praxus, a crystal flower made from glass, brass and shells that were set like gems instead of strung like stones. She tucked it around Prowl’s chevron, then leaned in to claim a kiss. Prowl let her have the kiss easily, and gave her a few extra besides.

"Love ya." Nimble fingers slipped something onto Prowl's wrist when they finally pulled apart. "Missed ya so much."

"Missed ya too," Prowl said, still looking at Jazz rather than the second gift so she could trace the contours of her face. "Hi, gorgeous."

"’Lo, beautiful." Jazz leaned in close, sniffing against Prowl’s plating. “Smell different.” Her engine rumbled and she licked Prowl possessively. 

Prowl squirmed, and sighed. She’d enjoyed it last time Jazz had “reclaimed” her after a long absence, and was looking forward to it now. “Got new paint. Like?”

“Like.” Jazz licked her again.

Behind them, Ricochet made gagging noises and Jazz made a rude gesture at her twin without even looking. The gathered villagers laughed uproariously.

Ignoring them, Prowl looked down at her hand to see what Jazz had put on there. A strand of differently sized and colored pearls looped three times around her wrist. "Oh!" They were soft and smooth against her plating; pleasant to wear, even though the irregular shapes, sizes and colors meant the strand didn't represent a great deal of wealth — to Polyhexians, at least. To a Praxan it was another king’s ransom in the rare gems. "’S it really fer me? It's so pretty!"

"Is." Jazz preened. "Know y’like th’pearls. Snagged a basket’a ’em too. Y'an' th'artists can make more." Her claws played gently with the new adornment, probably not-accidentally brushing the erogenous zone there.

"Yeah? That'll be fun." Prowl hadn't gotten to work with the village artisans who did fine handicrafts much in the last few cycles. She reached up to feel the chevron ornament. Why would a Polyhexian even buy something like this? "Can't believe ya found this. What a treasure!"

Jazz preened more. "Wasn't easy… " she said leadingly.

Prowl grinned. She knew how to play along with this game. "Tell me?"

"First we landed th'kattumaram outta sight'n split up. I took Freestuff overland t'th'village while Rico took Ember'n th'others back on th'boats round t'th'village directly. While they threw spells'n fought th'remaining warriors—"

"We were awesome!" Ricochet called. 

"—Freestuff'n I snuck in t'take everythin'." Jazz danced in place, clearly proud of the plan. "Did it three times before they caught on’n guarded against us.”

How sneaky of them; effective too, given what they'd brought back. "That's some clever tactics," Prowl admitted.

"The wera spell was really distractin'," Jazz said, aiming the comment in Wheeljack's direction. "Like it."

Wheeljack crowed. "Glad t'hear it! I'll set ya up with more fer yer next venture. Got th'burst jars workin' too, by the way."

Jazz danced in place. Someone started drumming, and she turned back to Prowl, tugging her toward the music. "Dance with me?"

"’Course I will." She wasn't very good at Polyhexian style dancing, but there was so much energy in it that it was impossible not to get caught up in it — especially with Jazz pulling on her, excitement and joy thick in her field and warm in their bond.

They were the first to step out into the cleared area around the fire, where the drummer was being joined by a flutist, another drummer, and a mech with some sort of stringed instrument. Jazz picked her up effortlessly and twirled her around, already starting to step to the rhythm. Prowl followed as best she could, content to let Jazz lead. Others began to fill the space around them, sharing touches both accidental and deliberate. Prowl didn’t encourage or return any of the flirting, but the incidental touches didn’t bother her as much now as they once had. They were just shows of friendly affection and overtures for more that she was free to turn down, and she did so without a second thought.

Except Jazz's flirting, of course.

And Jazz was doing plenty of flirting, running her hands over Prowl's doors and down to her hips at every opportunity.  _ Making _ opportunities to kiss her, on the hand, on her collar strut, on her lips. Prowl found places to kiss too: Jazz's shoulders, the tip of her nose, those horns on her head…

"Aa!  _ Prrrrrr." _

"Good spot?" Prowl purred back, then nibbled along her jawline.

Jazz didn't answer. She was too busy almost stumbling so she could purr and give Prowl better access.

"How ’bout we find an even better spot?"

"Follow y'anywhere, beautiful."

"Then follow me t'my tent." Prowl knew where this dance was going, and for all that physical shows of affection felt more natural to her now, she still wasn't comfortable opening her chest plating in front of others. 

This time she led, tugging Jazz in the direction of her tarp-covered hammock.

Her doors tended to tangle if she laid on her back; she'd fixed that for sleeping with a blanket that covered the holes in the net for something a little more solid, but with all the wiggling they were about to do, Prowl didn't want to bet on it staying in place so she let Jazz climb in first. 

Jazz arched herself seductively once she was in place, inviting Prowl to touch. 

Prowl traced the nearest line of glowing blue and Jazz moaned as she settled on top of her. Slowly the lines had shifted, fading where they didn't repaint them, glowing bright in new lines where they did, and now they were a map of their touchy spots. It was a map Prowl had long since committed to memory, but was happy to refresh her acquaintance with. 

"Yer so warm," she cooed softly.

"Yer th'most beautiful thing I've ever seen," Jazz whispered back. "Keahi ’erself couldn't lure m'from ya."

"’M glad'a that, since I dunno how I'd fight a goddess fer ya." Especially not one reputed for her physical beauty. Prowl looked down at Jazz beneath her, basking in the heat radiating off her frame and the  _ calling _ of her resonant spark. "But I'd try."

Jazz smiled. Claws traced over Prowl's chest seam. "Want ya."

The plating parted beneath her fingers. "’M yers," Prowl said, letting her spark expand.

Jazz leaned up, claiming a kiss, folding away her own plating as they touched.

_ Love. Lovelovelovelove _ … Jazz really did love with her whole spark. Ricochet and Prowl were her entire world. It awed Prowl every time to feel it, and reminded her that for all her doubts and worries, this was right. This was where she belonged, together with Jazz. Together…

Together the energy built, sparking and sparkling, gentle as a slow river, powerful as the tide. Prowl went with it, sank into it, and felt Jazz doing the same. They were drowning, but there was no danger; here, in this space, they were safe. They were one. And when they could go no deeper, overload swept over them both. They cried out in shared ecstasy, lightning dancing over them both, breaking like a storm at sea. It was wonderful, and Prowl let it completely overwhelm her senses. 

She’d once been afraid of this, but now she could think of nothing better. 

The separation of their sparks could have been shocking; instead once the energy faded away, it was dark and warm and safe. As she always did, Prowl came back to her senses to the sound of Jazz singing.

“Welcome back,” her mate sang, words mixing with the melody as her gentle caresses began to intensify. She ducked her head and nuzzled into Prowl’s neck, licking and teasing at the cables there. “Ain’t ready t’be done with ya yet,” she purred. “Not ’til ya got m’scent back  _ everywhere.” _

Prowl gasped and shivered, her already-warm frame heating even further. “Want yer scent on me,” she said, even though she couldn’t really tell how successfully it was transferring. It was nice to think that others would be able to detect it though, and be reminded that Jazz was her mate. “Does it go both ways? Want m’scent on ya too.”

“’Course it does, beautiful.” Jazz continued touching and licking everywhere she could reach, and some places Prowl could have sworn she couldn’t! “Wanted ya too much fer too long t’let anyone forget I found ya.”

“Even with th’new paint smell?”

“Even with,” Jazz chuckled, and Prowl’s self-consciousness dissolved under her kisses. “’S’a plain polish, but y’still smell like  _ ya.  _ I’m a good mate! Will bring ya all th’scented waxes y’want,” she promised, cupping Prowl’s cheek and looking directly into her optics, “but yer beautiful even without ’em, beautiful.”

What could she say to that? Her spark felt so full of love it was edging out her words, so Prowl let her hands and lips speak for her.

They each overloaded once more, purely from the tactile stimulation despite the fact that their sparks were still exposed. Jazz was very thorough about making sure their scents were fully mingled, inside and out, and after one more shallow merge Prowl lay in her arms completely sated. The party was still going on outside, completely unbuffered by the single tarp pulled down for privacy. Prowl was too relaxed and happy to care much.

"Missed ya while y'were away," she said slowly, her thoughts beginning to reorganize themselves as she petted Jazz's slightly parted chest plating. They had settled too far offset for their sparks to reach each other, but a tendril of light reached out of Jazz’s chest to curl around her fingers. "A lot happened."

"Mmmm?" Jazz's current song ended with a purr. "Tell me?"

Prowl huffed out a short laugh. "Where t'begin? I don't even know what counts as th'biggest news." To her the raid had been a big deal, but everyone in the village had been more concerned with the stinging crystals… which Prowl  _ definitely _ didn't want Jazz running afoul of by accident. "’S'a cluster'a gympie crystals just north of th'village. Coil'n Crux found ’em and came back blistered."

"I'll make sure I stay ’way from ’em if I go that way," Jazz said practically. "Leaf go'n talk t'em yet?"

"Yeah. She said they agreed not t'spread if we leave ’em alone and she takes their seed crystals somewhere else." Which was still just  _ wild _ as a concept for Prowl. "I can hardly believe it! Ain't like I don't believe ’er," she said quickly, "but th'idea'a plants  _ listenin' _ t'someone is incredible." Not to mention that Leaf and a couple of volunteers were planning on  _ actually going _ with baskets and a thicker than practical layer of wax on their plating to collect the bright pink (and also covered in toxic hairs) seed crystals so they could be relocated. The baskets would have to burned afterward, and it was inevitable that all of the volunteers would get stung. Better just them than endangering the village, they said. No one even considered disregarding their half of Leaf’s bargain, even though the plants had no way of telling if they’d gone through with it.

"Leaf's best with th’wild things. Zephyr prefers t'coax our fields t'grow."

"Yeah? I still haven't been t'see th'eastern fields. Howler says the dirt crystals're almost ready t'harvest, but I've been busy with Wheeljack. Y'didn't tell me he could make ’is platin' poisonous!"

"’E wouldn't hurt ya," Jazz assured.

"Sure, but it still surprised me. Didn't even know poison paint was a thing, any more'n talkin' t'plants is a thing."

"Ain't ’is paint. Ain't somethin' ’e can share. It's part’a his magic, cuz ’e's an aouli warrior."

"Figured it was cuz'a his spirit." It still wasn't something Prowl had even known was possible though. If it wasn’t a paint he made, Prowl had no idea how he accomplished it. Did he produce the poison himself, somehow? "Anyway I guess it's a good thing, since th'raiders didn't wanna touch ’im."

Jazz chuckled.

"They didn't get away with much. No goin' home t'celebrate like this," Prowl said, gesturing vaguely at the party beyond the tarp. "Did m’best t'drive ’em away with the others."

"’Course y'did." Jazz snuggled into her. “Knew th’village was in good hands.”

"Leaf said they were probably checkin' t'see if th'war-bands were out."

Jazz chuckled again. "An' found y'here instead. Rainclouds's th'best'a all th'clans."

"I love it so far. Stingin'… everything an' all."

Jazz wiggled happily. "I want ya t'be happy here."

“An’ I am. Fer th’most part.”

Jazz petted her, a slight frown forming on her face. “Somethin’ wrong?”

“It’s th’ _ diplomancing  _ stuff. ’M not makin’ th’mistakes I was afraid of, but I’m not bein’ as effective as th’king’s gonna want.” Building goodwill and forging friendships was important, but it wasn’t measurable. It didn’t give her anything to bring back to Praxus in the form of trades or treaties. “There’s still plenty’a time, I know, and I really am enjoyin’ life here,” she said, trying not to let her concerns creep in and push out the lingering peace of their last merge, “but I can’t forget I have t’go back t’Praxus eventually, and that there’s expectations there waitin’ fer me that I might not live up to.”

“What d’ya need?” Jazz said, after a klik of silent petting.

“Startin’ t’wonder if what I need’s even possible,” Prowl admitted. “Probably won’t surprise ya t’hear th’king wants th’ship raids t’stop.”

Jazz hummed noncommittally. 

“He asked me t’negotiate fer—”  _ concessions  _ was the word she wanted, but didn’t know how to say in Polyhexian “—promises not t’attack our ships in exchange fer things Praxus has that Polyhex can use.”

“Ain’t somethin’ th’warriors can promise,” Jazz whispered, wrapping her arms around Prowl’s shoulders and holding her close.

“Why?” It was a question she’d had for a long time, but never found a good way to ask. “Why go on raids at all?”

“Same reasons t’raid other clans.”

“But why do that? Why keep stealin’ from each other ’nstead’a sharin’ resources like on Harvest?”

Jazz squirmed uncomfortably. “Ain’t always enough,” she said finally.

“Ain’t enough?” 

“T’eat.”

Not enough to eat? Prowl needed a moment to process that. She’d already seen that life in Polyhex could be dangerous and difficult, but to run short of something as basic as fuel? To the point where stealing from each other was the solution to starvation? Some solution, if it just shuffled around who was going without and got people hurt in the process. 

Not that Praxus could claim to have solved the problem of starvation either. Prowl knew there were places in the kingdom that faced periodic resource shortages, though she’d never seen them in person. 

It was a novel thought, and a sobering one, that it was the  _ fuel _ the raiders were primarily after when they attacked Praxan ships and cities. She’d had a chance to see how the food storage buildings — the only buildings in the village — had been the raiders’ main target here, so she didn’t doubt Jazz at all. But Polyhexian pirates took everything they could. There was no one thing they seemed to go for over anything else, so everyone just assumed it was the treasures and goods being taken to trade in other ports they wanted. 

“If that’s th’case, wouldn’t fuel be somethin’ Praxus could trade?” That gave her hope. Even if she had to broker deals with each clan individually, it’d… well, it’d be a lot of work to make and maintain so many agreements, but it was  _ possible… _

“Maybe sometimes,” Jazz acknowledged. “Cuz sometimes we do trade, ’stead’a attackin’ th’clans. But not always. Can’t.”

“Can y’explain why?” Of course Jazz knew her own people better than Prowl did, but if there was even a chance there was something she could do, something they hadn’t thought of before, she needed to pursue it. “I wanna understand.”

“Warriors die, beautiful,” Jazz said gently but frankly. “Can live, by skill’n th’favor’a th’gods, but it’s th’life’a a warrior t’walk with death, moreso than any other.”

“’Kay. But what does that have t’do with it?”

Jazz made a soft noise of frustration, deep in her engine. “Maybe I can’t explain it fer ya,” she said sadly. “Leaf’r Zephyr might be able ta.”

“’M sorry,” Prowl apologized. Maybe it was another of those things she would have instinctively understood if she’d been harvested on the islands; something that became clear just by living out the cycle of seasons. In which case, her question might yet answer itself in time, but, “I’ll try askin’ ’em later,” she said. 

“’Kay.”

Prowl snuggled in close, reassuring Jazz she wasn’t upset that she hadn’t been able to explain (and reminding herself it was okay that she didn’t understand right away). “Can’t help bein’ curious,” she murmured. “I like knowin’ all the things.”

“Yer fantastic,” Jazz purred. 

“’Course I am.” Here, her curiosity was a  _ good  _ thing, something that only needed to be tempered with caution for safety’s sake, not bottled up and locked away for others’ convenience. It was something Prowl was still working on adapting to, but with some people — Jazz, of course, but also Wheeljack, Crux, even Chromia — she no longer felt the need to hold herself back. It was wonderful.

“Hi! What’cha doin’?” 

Case in point. Crux poked her head into Prowl’s “private” tent.

“Cuddlin’,” Prowl answered without bothering to look up. It was even odds the newling was about to climb up into the hammock with them… 

“Oooh. I like cuddling.” The hammock rocked, and Prowl heard the branches supporting them creak as she did just that, settling her weight on top of them both. Jazz was laughing.

“Know ya do, keong. Lift up just a bit so I can— ’kay, yer fine now,” Prowl said, shifting her door so Crux wasn’t lying directly on it. “All th’cuddle.”

“Y’think I could be a shipcat too?” she asked sleepily, already drifting off. Obviously it had been an exciting cycle for her too. “I was watchin’ that litter on Residue’s kattumaram’n they cuddle up just like this…”

“Lotsa critters cuddle,” Jazz said from the bottom of their pile. “Wouldn’t mind if y’were another cat though.”

“Sundance’d be even bossier with ya,” Prowl giggled. “Think y’can handle that?”

“I like Sundance.”

“She likes ya too.” Wherever she was. Cat.

“Yay… zzz…”

.

.

.

It was impossible to sleep through someone else getting out of a shared hammock. Or into it, for that matter, but today it was Crux rolling out and dashing off with a squeal of delight that woke Prowl from her recharge. She thought about going back to sleep for a nanoklik, but then she noticed there was still someone in the hammock with her, and when her processor caught up and she remembered it was Jazz, it was her turn to squeal.

“Yer here!” 

Jazz chuckled and hugged back when she threw her arms around her mate. “’M still here. Mornin’, beautiful.”

Still here? Oh no. Prowl clung tighter. “Yer not leavin’ again right away, are ya?”

“Coo~ru,” Jazz soothed. “Not  _ right  _ away. Gotta patch up th’boats that got tagged first. Do need t’go out again after that though.”

“How long?”

“Dunno. Depends how bad th’damage is’n how fast th’shipwrights can fix it. Ember’s kattumaram’s just a little bit singed’n ’e can sand’n reseal it ’imself, but Lithic’s banged up against a rock pretty good. Need t’have Marlinspike take a look t’be sure th’keel ain’t cracked. We made it back without any trouble, but that was without pushin’ ’er too hard.”

Prowl didn’t really hope the keel had cracked, but she wouldn’t mind having Jazz around for longer if it was. “Yer kattumaram’s okay though, right?”

“’Course! Rico dodged all’a th’flash-bangs. ’F it were just us, we coulda set sail again last night.” Jazz grinned up at her. “But I wasn’t gonna miss celebratin’ with ya.”

“Glad ya didn’t,” Prowl said, and kissed her. She didn’t let it escalate into another round of “celebrating” though. “Come git somethin’ t’eat with me?”

“Could do,” Jazz said, stabilizing the hammock for Prowl to climb out before standing up as well. “Or y’can come with me.”

Did that mean that Jazz wanted to go food-finding instead of simply grabbing a bowl at the fire? “Sure.”

Jazz kissed her chevron and led the way toward the river delta.

They hadn’t gone far when—

“Ja~zz!” 

—a loud meow erupted from one of the tangles of bakau roots. Sundance streaked out into their path, nearly tripping them both. If she’d hoped Jazz would pet her, she probably should have slowed down, because with a yelp of surprise the warrior leaped straight up to cling to one of the bakau branches above them.

“Pfft!” Prowl started laughing. “Were you  _ trying  _ to scare her up a tree?” she asked Sundance before looking up at her mate. “Really? ’S just m’cat.”

Jazz glared down at the shipcat and let out a hiss-yowl that had Sundance lowering her ears contritely. She dropped down to land lightly on the tangle of roots. Shaking her plating and settling with a familiar  _ I meant to do that _ prance, she held out her hand to Sundance. “’Lo.”

“Hi,” Sundance replied, sniffed, then cautiously nuzzled Jazz’s fingers. Her posture eased out of its apologetic crouch, recovering to her normal, confident poise. “She missed you,” she informed Jazz, even though the warrior couldn’t understand her.

_ “I  _ missed her? I’m not the one who tried to tackle her.”

“Only because she pounced you first.” Sundance blinked slowly up at Jazz. 

Jazz’s scolding posture softened, and she smiled. “Hey, critter,” she greeted, scritching the cat’s audial flaps.

Sundance’s very audible purr made it clear she thought she’d won.

“Pest,” Prowl said, still giggling. “Bet she abandons us again if findin’ food’s gonna involve water.”

Jazz snickered. “Was just gonna see what we could find on th’beach. That good fer elua?”

_ You-and-your-spirit.  _ Prowl and Sundance shared a look.

“Yep.” They nodded in unison. “Let’s go.”

Jazz smiled and led the way out of the bakau. 

Prowl had been to this beach before, to explore and food-find, and usually it was occupied by a group of artisan metal workers, building their smelters from clay and sand and extracting metal from rock. Today they were gone, but had been replaced by the war-band’s damaged kattumaram. Ember’s was sitting empty by itself, but the other was being crawled on by several Polyhexians.

“Ouch,” Sundance meowed. “I can see where it got hit.”

It certainly looked bad to Prowl, but she couldn’t say for sure. It was easy to almost dismiss the kattumaram in the water. They weren’t primitive, but they looked  _ simple _ when all she could see were the sails and the decks. Pulled up on the shore, being fussed over, they looked a lot more intricate. Putting such a thing together — or repairing one correctly — certainly required some engineering knowledge. 

Engineering wasn’t her field, but even she could see that if they could build something like a kattumaram, a house should be simple! 

“Food first,” she told Sundance, “then maybe we can ask someone about it. Unless you decide to sneak over and have a look around first.” The cat was both a better hunter (of small things) and didn’t need to eat as much, so she’d be done before they were.

Jazz merely glanced over at the two boats, but she seemed satisfied by the activity around them and didn’t comment, trotting further down to start searching the sand for the telltale remis holes and other yummy (and occasionally not so yummy) things.

_ Not  _ willing to eat decomposing shellfish and rotten seaweed herself, Prowl took longer to find things that were still fresh… and then killed them, because eating things while they were still moving bothered her. She wandered along the beach independently from Jazz, at one point close enough to the people working on the kattumaram to overhear some of their conversation. It sounded like good news for Jazz’s war-band; while they weren’t all agreed on how long the repairs would take exactly, the general consensus was that they wouldn’t need more than a few sunrises. Prowl felt somewhat mixed about that, but they all sounded eager to get back to work on “the new one” that was still under construction somewhere else on the island.

Prowl moved on when there wasn’t anything new to hear or any new bubbles in the sand.

She headed back toward Jazz, picking her way through broken shells and clumps of weeds. There were some small fish that hadn’t gone off yet, having recently washed up and become trapped. Prowl ate a few of those, but the best thing she caught was a bird, lured in by the pile of shells she had started. Rather than shooing it away, she sent an orb of stunning light at it so it wouldn’t fly away before she could make sure of it with her knife.

“Good kill,” Jazz purred approvingly, settling down with her own current “kill” of a clump of seaweed with assorted snails busily feeding on the rubber. She leaned against Prowl, who felt her mate’s engine rumble contentedly. 

“Was!” Pride swelled in Prowl’s field, and she flicked a long wingfeather at Jazz’s audial horn playfully. The warrior shivered. “’M a good food-finder.”

“Are,” Jazz agreed huskily. “Always knew y’would be.”

“Glad ya had that confidence in me, ’fore I even did in myself.” But just look at her now! Able not only to fend for herself, but to defend her new home. “Th’raids’ll git more intense, won’t they? An’ sneakier, as th’season goes on.”

“Will.” Jazz’s voice lost that seductive edge and instead petted Prowl comfortingly. “Goal ain’t t’kill, but t’steal. But if a clan starts goin’ hungry, th’warriors’ll be harder t’drive off’n more willin’ t’kill t’git what they need.”

“An’ I… need t’be willin’ t’kill too, don’t I? If it comes to it.” She’d already known that intellectually, but sitting in the castle in Praxus thinking about it was a lot further away from the reality than a beach in Polyhex. “Not just in self-defense, but in defense’a Rainclouds.”

“If we got th’extra, we’ll try t’be generous, if we hear someone’s in real trouble,” Jazz promised. “Leaf’r Zephyr can make an offer like that. But if they say no, th’raiders won’t turn away.”

“At which point it falls t’us t’make ’em turn away.” Prowl understood, really. It was exactly the way Praxus would respond to an appeal from one of the other nations: with assistance if possible, and with force if necessary. The part she kept getting hung up on was the duality of Polyhex as a single entity and a group of disparate warring clans. It obviously didn’t bother the islanders one bit, but it felt strange to her. “I can do it,” she promised, “don’t gotta worry ’bout that. ’M just not used ta bein’ so directly involved.”

“Y’can,” Jazz answered, with perfect confidence. She picked a tiny snail off of the clump of weed and offered it to Prowl. 

Snails were okay. Prowl took the tiny critter and cracked its shell to get at the fuel inside. “Hope it doesn’t complicate any’a th’ _ diplomat  _ stuff I need t’do with th’other clans.”

Jazz scoffed. She picked her own tiny snail out of its shell with her claws, leaving the shell intact to maybe be used for something other than paint ingredients. “Ain’t no one’s gonna hold yer war season actions against ya durin’ th’truce. Not after a good screamin’ match, at least.”

“That simple?”

“Ain’t gotta be complicated.”

“Right. Cuz that usually stops things from bein’ complicated,” Prowl teased. “That’s one thing our people have in common: complicatin’ things that don’t need complicatin’.”

Jazz snickered. “Still hungry?”

“Bit, yeah.” 

“Guess y’don’t wanna share this?” She held up the clump of rubbery weeds, now picked almost clean of tiny critters.

“Pass,” Prowl said, making a face. Just because something could be eaten, didn’t mean it should be.

“More fer me,” Jazz bragged cheerfully. She tore off a bit of it and stuffed it into her mouth in a manner that would have scandalized the Praxan court. Again. She chewed loudly. “Mmm—” She stopped and tilted her head to listen.

“Hmm?” Prowl looked around, not hearing anything. “What is it?”

“Thewe.” She stopped, swallowed the bite of seaweed, then started again. “Tetere.” She listened, then smiled. “Come on. We gotta git some bags.”

“’Kay.” Prowl brushed sand from her plating. “Sundance?”

A pair of ears appeared over the side of Lithic’s beached kattumaram. “Mrrow?”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Prowl said reflexively. It never made any difference. “Are you coming with us?”

“Will there be food?”

“I don’t know.” She looked at Jazz. “This gonna involve food?”

“Oh yeah.” She discarded her rubber weed and crawled to her feet, then reached down to help Prowl up. “So much food.”

Sundance  _ mrrow _ ’ed happily.

“Some bags” apparently meant “all the bags”. Jazz veered off to grab hers from the kattumaram while Prowl returned to her tent to dump the shells she’d collected and dig through her things for the sailcloth squares she hadn’t already taken with her to the beach. They weren’t the only ones doing so, either. All around the village people were grabbing bags and baskets and heading off into the forest with looks of excitement on their faces. Even Crux and Cricket looked excited as they ran by, making Prowl wonder if someone had given them a more thorough explanation than she’d gotten, or if they were just caught up in it. The puppies were definitely just caught up, and barrelled along ahead of them through the underbrush where they all disappeared.

“Come on.” Jazz smiled as she popped up and grabbed Prowl’s hand and tugged her inland.

If there was a trail they were following, Prowl couldn’t see it at all. She tried to demand what they were doing several times, but Jazz just kept mysteriously pulling her forward.

“There,” Jazz finally pointed, coming to a stop. Prowl blinked, and a red spot just ahead moved and resolved itself into a nijan about the size of her hand. “Git it.” She dropped her hand and trotted a short distance away, where she’d apparently spotted a second of the bright red creatures.

“But… won’t they tear th’bags?” Prowl was already approaching the nijan anyway, trying to gauge how best to grab it.

“Not fast enough,” Jazz called, scooping hers up then zigging off in another direction to pick up another.

They weren’t? Well, Jazz would know if it was going to be a problem or not. Prowl reached around behind the nijan and picked it up so that it’s bright red claws were facing away from her.

“Do you think I’m allowed to eat it?” Sundance asked, pawing at another that was trying desperately to fend off the scary monster with its large pincher, only to be batted on its dark face by a quick little cat paw. Ignoring its fellow nijan’s plight, a second one crawled by, scuttling sideways through the brush. 

“Sounded like you were,” Prowl said, maneuvering the one in her hand into her first bag so she could pick up another. “The way she said ‘so much food’ makes me think… there’ll… be…” 

A lot. There were  _ a lot  _ of nijan in the forest.

In a bit of a daze, Prowl scooped up a second and tucked it into the bag. They wiggled, but unlike the nijan in Jazz’s crate, these didn’t fight; they just scrambled over each other trying to climb out of the bag, only to fall back to the bottom as Prowl closed it so she could go after a third.

They weren’t making a  _ dent _ in their numbers. Prowl saw fleeting glimpses through the trees of the other villagers, doing their own gathering, and mechs weren’t the only predators coming out to snap them up. Birds of all sorts cackled, cawed, and snapped at each other, fighting for the choicest bits and swooping down to snatch them up to eat in the branches. Cryosnakes shimmied down from the crystal branches to grab nijan as they passed. But if anything there were more, and more of them every klik.

“Where are they all  _ coming  _ from?” 

“Prowl!” Sundance cried out and Prowl whipped around, concerned, only to see the nijan scuttling along peacefully… over her familiar’s back. “Get it off!”

“I think— oh!”  _ Crunch!  _ She hadn’t meant to step on that one, but there weren’t a lot of places she could put her feet that weren’t already occupied. “It’ll move on its own, if you just wait.”

“I want it off!” she yowled.

“Well, give me a klik and I’ll—”  _ Crunch!  _ “—darn it.” Prowl picked her way over to Sundance, scooting nijan out of her path with the side of her foot and scooping up several into her bag. She was going to need to start a second one already. “There,” she said when she was finally close enough to pluck the nijan off of Sundance’s back. Immediately her familiar scrambled up to perch on her shoulder and hissed down at the sea of bright red nijan swarming around them.

Prowl stared at them all, somewhat dumbfounded. Their claws prickled over her feet where they were walking over her too. “I’d say there’s enough for you to eat as many as you want.”

Sundance sniffed, still offended at the one that had crawled over her. 

“Prowl!” Jazz shuffled and picked her way over through the crabs. She sucked the last of the energon from the one she was carrying, then discarded it. “Doin’ good?”

“Got one bag’n an annoyed cat so far.” Prowl grinned briefly through her surprise. “’S like they’re takin’ over th’island!”

Jazz laughed. “They’re trying t’git t’th’sea’n release their sparks inta th’water.”

“What they’re gonna git is eaten,” Prowl said, though even as she said it she doubted they could possibly get them all. Even if every bird, hound, cat, mech and femme all caught a hundred apiece there would still be hundreds left. At  _ least.  _ “How many’re we supposed t’catch?”

“Many as y’can. Then we pour ’em out inta crates’n come back’n git more.” Jazz flashed her fangs, grinning. 

“Ah. Well then. Guess I got a lotta work ahead’a me. Is it bad if I…” she pointed over at the thoroughly crunched nijan, barely visible beneath the others crawling over the carcass.

Jazz stroked Prowl’s arm. “’S’okay. Try not ta, but it’s hard.”

“Is! Wish I had a spell t’let me fly right about now.”

“Wouldn’t that be somethin’!” The warrior bent down to scoop up all of those around her feet and sat down. She patted the ground next to her. “It’ll take a sunmark fer ’em all t’go by.” She plucked one crawling over her leg and stuffed it in her bag.

Prowl started to sit down next to her, but Sundance yowled in protest. She winced at the noise so close to her ear. “Jump up in one of the trees, they aren’t climbing that high,” she said, raising her arm to give the cat a launchpad. That problem solved, Prowl went ahead and flopped down, letting the nijan all but walk into her hands. 

She finished filling a second bag, then paused to eat one of them. “What’s that flavor?”

Jazz shrugged. “We call ’em nijan miso.”

Miso! “Th’same stuff in th’hupa?”

“With salt from th’bakau’n other things.” Jazz cracked open the shell of another so she could eat it too. “Can’t let a feast like this go t’waste.”

Of course not. So the miso paste was the way they preserved this bounty. Prowl giggled; it was a lot easier to store paste in barrels than hundreds upon hundreds of live nijan!

“Can’t see how you think there’s anything funny about this,” Sundance meowed. Prowl looked up to see her pacing in the branches, torn between staying away from the crawling things and pouncing on them to eat them.

“It’s funny if you imagine a huge stack of boxes filled with them.” Prowl took pity on her familiar and tossed one of the nijan up to her. “Why, there’s probably enough of them to fill the hold of an entire ship!” Which prompted the thought of the Hightower market overrun with the things, and her giggles turned to outright laughter.

Obviously, Jazz didn’t know what she was laughing at, but Prowl felt her mate’s EM field buzz happily against her. Happy because Prowl was happy. 

After a short break, they both got up to continue stuffing their bags until there wasn’t any room left for even a single nijan. Prowl broke off an ohe pole and used it to sweep her path somewhat clear as they made the trek back to the village to empty them. There were crates set out and waiting for them, though some were already so full they’d been nailed shut. 

And there were still nijan everywhere, crawling through sleeping hollows and over whatever equipment had been left lying around. There were somewhat fewer of them by virtue of the islanders who had stuck close to the village gathering up a large swathe of them, but even here it was impossible to get them all.

Prowl giggled at the sight of one of the village turbodogs sprawled out on its side with a nijan in its mouth, like it’d given up on being able to eat more than halfway through its last one. It was so full it barely noticed it was being crawled over by three more.

Jazz nudged her. “That’s gonna be us.”

“Yeah?” Prowl shook out her bags into one of the crates. “Think we don’t have better self-control?”

“By sunset,  _ everythin’s _ gonna be that, or we ain’t doin’ it right.”

Well, if that was how it was supposed to be… Good thing she liked the taste of nijan! Prowl cast her unseen servant spell so it could help fill and carry more bags. “Gather b’fore eatin’ ourselves inta a coma though, yeah?”

“Sure.” Jazz leaned in for a quick kiss. “Race ya!”

“No fair!” She couldn’t run without stepping on the nijan! Jazz obviously didn’t care, and only stopped to see if Prowl was following when her agile sprint took her to the edge of the forest without a single missed step.

“Comin’?”

Prowl smiled. “Yeah.” She wouldn’t win any races, but, “I’m comin’.”

.

.

.

"Oi!" Jazz called to a cluster of mechs and femmes all dressed in brightly colored sarong and hikurere gathering up baskets. They looked up, and Jazz waved. "Mind if me an’ Prowl tag along?" she asked as she drew closer. "She's never seen a dirt crystal harvest before."

The five of them goggled. Prowl saw all of them look quickly at Sundance, who was primly perched on her shoulder. She'd seen that before from other Polyhexians who were surprised she hadn't seen or done something before; her spirit guide was a physical, visible creature, easy to see that she definitely  _ had  _ one, and having a spirit guide was the mark of an adult mech or femme who was ready to take their place in the tribe. Which, of course, meant that the way she'd gone about it all backwards by finding her spirit guide first continued to catch people off-guard. 

"Where I came outta th'ground, newlings're taught other things," she said, explaining the simplest way she’d found how. "’S why I wanna learn now.” She’d already learned all there was to know about how miso was prepared. The process was far from complete after only two cycles, but it wasn’t very complicated — just a  _ massive  _ amount of work, thanks to the sheer volume of nijan. Helping with that task was something she was willing to go back to later, but while Jazz was still here waiting on the final kattumaram repairs, she wanted to do something more active. Something they could do together. “Please show me?”

They exchanged shrugs. "Sure." One stepped forward, apparently the leader of this particular group. "I'm Zephyr'n we ain't gonna turn down a  _ pair _ 'a eager hands t'help. Right, Jazz?"

Jazz winced, but then gave them an easy smile. "’Course not."

Neither Zephyr nor Jazz looked exactly happy. Zephyr didn’t seem too keen on a warrior coming along to do villager work, but at the same time he’d just pressured Jazz into actually helping instead of just tagging along to watch, and Jazz had said before they’d approached that she was willing to go “even if it means grubbin’ in th’dirt a bit”. 

"Pleased t’meet ya,” Prowl said seriously. She’d heard a lot about Zephyr, since he seemed to be in charge of much of the village’s efforts to grow things — a leader of sorts, to match Leaf’s authority with wild things — but she hadn’t met him yet. Now was not the time to start talking about improving relations with Praxus though! “Do I need t'bring anything?" she asked, looking at all the things the others were gathering. "What tools d'ya need fer dirt crystals?"

"You know how t'make a sailcloth pouch?" Both Jazz and Prowl nodded. "Good. We don't have any extra baskets."

"Gonna need a diggin’ knife," Jazz added. "This one." She pointed to one of the knives tied to Prowl's legs, the larger, thicker one with a serrated teeth partially up one side.

"Gotcha."

"Come on," Zephyr ordered. Jazz bristled, and received a flat look in return. The staring contest continued for a few kliks, then both looked away simultaneously. "We planted th’dirt crystals farther away this season t'give th'land a chance t'rest. ’S’out on th'flow." 

Prowl had heard that word before, but hadn’t seen the area it described yet. She followed readily as Zephyr led the way — the other villagers waited for her and Jazz to pass them before following behind them — after loading his basket onto a grazing mechanimal that reminded Prowl of a zap pony, except taller and daintier, with a pair of long, spiraled horns on its head. "This is Scratch," he said when he saw her looking.

"Is… is Scratch yer spirit guide?" He was easily the biggest one she’d seen if he was. Polyhexians  _ did  _ use mechanimals for certain kinds of labor, but this creature lacked any sort of restraints or harnesses, and was following docilely and purposefully without any guidance. It was the only explanation she could think of to trust so large a mechanimal with that sort of freedom. Not that she didn't sometimes wish she had a leash for Sundance (she wouldn't really, but sometimes…)

"Yeah." Zephyr gave Prowl an encouraging smile. "’E likes sweet-thorn crystals; I'll let'cha feed ’im one." He pulled a long, thin crystalline twig with wicked iron thorns out of his pouch. The grazer's audio-flaps swiveled forward to focus on the treat.

"Hello, Scratch," Prowl said politely. She took the offered crystal carefully. "’M Prowl an' this's Sundance." 

"That's not a treat," the cat sniffed at the spiky crystal.

The grazer seemed to think it was. It— he took it out of Prowl's hand, then bumped her in the chest while he chewed, offering the base of his dangerous-looking horns to scratch. 

They more than  _ looked _ dangerous; now that Prowl could see them up close, she realized she'd seen both spears and harpoon heads carved from the steelbone tips. Did the points drop off as they grew like a cat's claws? Did the whole antler shed and regrow? Or did Polyhexians hunt them? She obligingly scratched around the base of one horn, then the other. "Pleased t'meet ya."

Scratch snorted hot air into Prowl's face. 

"’E likes ya," Zephyr translated. "’Course th'big dumb beast likes anyone who can't eat ’im."

_ Jazz _ snorted in response to that. "Keep remindin' ya: I weren't gonna hurt ’im none. Ain't  _ no one _ knew I was a fishin' cat at th'time."

"Oh? What happened?" It sounded like she was missing out on quite a bit of context!

"’E stepped on m'," Jazz said, hanging her head and giving Prowl a look of such overblown dejectedness that she giggled. "Was just curious."

"Said every kokako ever." Zephyr was entirely unsympathetic. "Y'fell outta a crystal tree on top'a ’im. ’E was just a newlin' ’imself an' fishin' cats  _ eat _ grazers b'fore their horns grow in."

Prowl bit back an outright laugh at that mental picture. It had something in common with the way Jazz had exploded off the ground when Sundance had charged her.

"Didn't know I was a fishin' cat." Jazz pouted, and Prowl took her hand in a show of solidarity (even if she was still giggling).

As usual, the “path” through the jungle effectively vanished once they moved away from the village, forcing them into a single file arrangement as they wound through the brush. There were places where the trail had even washed out, and they had to climb over fallen crystal trees and streams. Why didn't they make a road? Was it “too much effort” the way buildings were? 

"How come y'haven't cleared th'path any?" Prowl asked as she ducked to avoid yet another low-hanging branch. It was going to be even harder coming back, with baskets and sacks filled with crystals they didn't want to spill.

"Huh?" Zephyr looked back at her, confused. "Path's clear."

"She means take out all'a th'brush so it's wide enough t'drive," Jazz said. "’S'what they do in Hightower an' Prax."

Zephyr snorted at the same time Scratch did, the two mirroring each other. "Well  _ we _ ain't doin' that."

"Why not? If y'come an' go a lot, wouldn't it make things easier?"

Zephyr shook his head. "Easier fer us don' mean easier fer all'a us. Don' wanna hurt th'forest. Gods'n spirits'll be angry, an' th'hunters won't be able t'hunt."

"Oh." Long-term versus short-term goals. It made sense, if they were once again considering the plants’ needs right alongside their own, even if it meant a slight inconvenience to them now. Especially, she supposed, if this wasn't where they usually planted. "These take a long time t'grow?" she asked, indicating the larger crystal trees around them.

Zephyr shrugged. "What's a 'long time'? Long t'a glichmouse ain't a long time t'us. Long time t'us ain't a long time t'a island."

Ugh. Polyhexians and their fluid concepts of time. She should have expected that answer. "More'n a couple seasons, I guess," since she'd been thinking in terms of how fast the forest would recover from one vorn to the next. "They probably don't grow this big that fast, do they?" Otherwise there'd be more pieces on the ground from the crystals growing brittle and breaking off to make room for new growths.

Prowl found herself wishing — not for the first time — that she knew more about crystal ecology than she did.

"Takes a while," Zephyr agreed.

It also took a while to reach the field. He hadn't been kidding about planting farther away, and it was a relief to Prowl when they arrived. Driving would have been so much faster and easier. Her slightly larger stature and doorwings had made the "cleared path” more of a challenge for her than Jazz and the others.

As they stepped out of the crystal trees onto the open field, Prowl had to stop and stare. This was bare, blackened rock the likes of which she had never seen before. It looked almost liquid, like it had been poured over the ground and then hardened as it spread. “Flow” indeed!

Zephyr and Scratch led the way out onto the black rock. The others spread out in their wake, but Jazz stopped and put her hand on Prowl's back. "Somethin' wrong, beautiful?"

"No," Prowl said, stretching her doors now that she had room as she took in the view. "Ain't never seen anything like this before, that's all. What  _ is _ all’a this stuff?"

"Rock."

"But it's all… shiny." Prowl knelt down to touch the glassy surface. "Why's it look like that?"

"’S'what it looks like when it cools." Jazz stroked her as the other villagers made their way around them. "B'fore th'sea'n rain git t'it."

"We planted here t'start th'break up while th'forest around th'village recovered," Zephyr said. "Th'crystals can't grow until it breaks int' pieces'n starts t'rust. Those," he nodded to the jungle behind them, "would have t'wait until th'rain did it naturally. But we can do it by hand fer our own crops. That way, when we move back t'our regular plantin' spots, th'forest's ready t'move out onta th'flow. Win-win."

"Where's it come from?"

"Keahi,” Jazz answered. “She'n ’er hounds're diggin' fer treasure at th'spark'a th'island. She melts th'rock an' th'hounds push it outta th'way t'flow down th'side'a th'island ’til it cools or hits th'Sea."

Liquid rock… Prowl looked across the great black expanse in front of them. What little experience she had with liquid rock and metal was on a much,  _ much _ smaller scale, observing artisans, and working with it to learn specific fire and rock magic. Even on that smaller scale, she had been warned repeatedly of the potential dangers. The idea of the whole plain covered in it… "Sounds kinda scary," she admitted.

Jazz shrugged. "Ain't a sail on calm seas, fer sure."

"Come on," Zephyr said. "We still gotta get t'th'field."

"Ready?" Jazz asked gently.

"Yeah." The rock wasn't liquid now, after all. Zephyr and the others would have been out here to plant the crystals and to tend them, and nothing untoward had happened to them yet. "I wanna see."

"Follow Zephyr an' th'others," was Jazz's final advice before letting her go to walk on her own. "They've walked th'trail b'fore an' th'flow can be treacherous."

Prowl did her best not to get distracted as they made their way across the rock, paying attention to where the others were walking instead of looking around. There were no markers of any kind that she could see; presumably they recognized certain formations in the rock from having walked the path before and used them to find their way. Once again, no real effort had been made to make the going any easier, and she had to be careful not to lose her balance in a couple of places. And keeping her balance was a useless effort when the ground suddenly and without warning shook beneath them. At least she wasn’t the only one who fell.

They paused where they were when it stopped, getting back up without moving on. Zephyr cast some sort of spell while he waited; the light spread out around his hands on the flow. Prowl opened her mouth to ask what was happening, then changed her mind and just watched.

“’S safe,” Zephyr announced to her and the other expectant faces once the light faded away. “We’ll keep goin’. Anyone fall bad enough t’need a healin’ spell?”

“Think m’strut’s broken,” one of the villagers who hadn’t stood up said. It looked like he’d gotten his foot caught in a crevasse as he fell. 

Zephyr nodded. He came over to examine the foot in question for a moment, then quickly cast the spell.

“So? What was that?” Sundance meowed once the mech was back on his feet. “And is it going to happen again?”

Prowl didn’t know, but they were very good questions so she repeated them.

“Keahi,” Zephyr answered. “Happens every once inna while.”

“So it’s just a thing about bein’ out on th’flow?”

“No. Everyone felt it. But it ain’t gonna happen again this sunrise.”

Oh. So it was just another thing about the island — islands? — in general. Prowl would have liked to know more about the phenomenon than just attributing it to the goddess and her hounds, but the conversation was apparently Over. The others were already setting off again, and she didn’t want to get left behind.

She didn't realize she was looking at the "crops", just noted that there were patches of a vine-like rubber weed that had invaded the cracks and crevasses of the flow, until the villagers broke off from the main group and started digging up the weeds with their digging knives.

Well. There wasn't anything else growing out on the flow like she’d seen in the fields of other crops closer to the village. She wasn’t about to harvest the wrong thing by accident if she just started digging too.

She didn’t go for them right away though, and stood watching Jazz for a moment as she tied a bag of her own, wondering if there was a specific technique to digging through the rock. At the very least, she wanted to see what the crystals actually looked like before she started rooting around for them herself.

As befit the name "dirt crystal", the actual crystals turned out to be underground, connected to the surface and to each other by the rubber weed. Jazz carefully cleared away the surrounding rock and dirt and gravel and pulled out the whole network, weed and all. She then cut the brown lumpy crystals, half a dozen of them, each about the size of her fist, off the rubbery network and placed them in her bag. The leftover rubber she left on the growing pile forming nearby where the villagers were discarding theirs, and moved on.

"There aren't any glitchmice in there," Prowl told Sundance as she looked around for a weed of her own to try digging up. The cat was crouched down beside the pile of rubber weeds, tail swishing intently. "They just made that pile."

"Glitchmice are sneaky!" the cat meowed back. 

"If you say so," Prowl said. Hexbugs were more likely than glitchmice in her opinion, but even if there was nothing in the weeds but shadows, Sundance was not going to be dissuaded. "Let me know if you catch anything."  _ She _ was going to get herself some dirt crystals!

…or maybe just a lot of dirt, to start with. She wasn't used to the rock, and her knife wound up slipping and cutting the weed she was following, which she then had to refind in the growing pile of loose rock. "Drat. Where did it go?"

The villagers didn't help; they were all busy with their own harvests. Prowl was going to have, was expected, to figure this out on her own.

Reasoning that — since Zephyr had said the crystals couldn't grow in the rock until it had been broken up a bit — the weed wouldn't be in any solid rock, she started sifting through the gravel with her hands, searching for the rubber weed. The shards were sharp and gritty, and Prowl's hands were going to be all scratched up when she was done. 

After a klik of sifting, she found one of the weeds. "Aha! There you are." This time she was more careful with her knife, dislodging the rock around the weed as she pulled on it, working along the vine until— "Yes!" The whole plant came up in her hand, lumpy dirt crystals and all.

They  _ did _ look like chuno, that ubiquitous base of so much island villager fare that were supposedly made from them. Prowl had seen chuno go whole or coarsely crushed into any number of variations on hupa, and ground up to use as a binder or flavoring. But where chuno crystals were cracked and white, these had an irregular, smooth brown coating.

Brushing them off as she clipped them from the vine didn't reveal any white, and even cutting open the tiniest bud on the vine curiously revealed the inside to be different than the chuno she knew. The final step in preparing them, whatever they did to preserve them, must, in the process, change their color. 

She could ask Jazz about that later though. Right now, she was supposed to be filling her bag.

The vine had had five good-sized crystals on it, along with the tiny one she'd cut up. She hesitated with that one, then went ahead and tossed the pieces into her bag with the intact crystals and got up to leave the rubber weed with the rest. "Catch anything?" she asked Sundance, wiggling the weed for her to pounce before letting it go.

"No. But I will!"

Prowl left her to it.

It got easier the more she did, pulling up the vines and collecting the crystals. She still wasn't going at anywhere near the pace the others were, but the sailcloth bag was smaller than a basket, so it would probably even out in the end. 

"Do we bring th'weed part back too?" she asked Jazz at one point, noticing how big the pile was getting.

"Naw." She smiled up at Prowl, her own hands scratched up as well, though she had claws to worry at the cracks in the rock with. "We'll tear it up’n put it back in th'same spots. When Zephyr says it's time t'plant again th'rock’n leftover weeds’n rain'll've made a slush an' they'll plant in that."

Prowl thought about that as she continued harvesting. She could sort of see how that worked. They came in and broke up the rock, added something to make the slush for the first crop, then with each harvest they broke up more rock, adding the leftovers back in, until they were ready to move on and the patch of ground was ready to be claimed by the forest. Then they started over, either with a new patch of the Flow, or with their recovered fields near the village. What a clever cycle.

Eventually she had a full bag. "What now?" She looked around to see how close everyone else was to done.

Grinning, Jazz pulled out another square of cloth and handed it to her. "We stop when Zephyr says stop."

Without any breaks? Gamely, Prowl continued harvesting, but it wasn't long before she was slowing down from fatigue rather than getting faster with improved skill. Ever since they'd left the village it had been non-stop physical activity, and she was starting to wish for a break. The sun beat down on her doors and made the black rock underfoot hot, and her hands were starting to hurt as more and more — and some deeper — cuts appeared from the sharp edges.

She’d wanted active, but this was exhausting!

She kept waiting for someone to comment on her slowed pace, but no one did. Jazz started a song, a chant both similar and different from the shanties she sang at sea, that everyone joined in for a while. That helped a little, once Prowl learned it well enough to sing along too, but it didn't stop the sun or the rock from hurting. Fortunately, no one commented negatively when she summoned a water jet straight up in the air just to cool off either.

In the end, she had only two bags of the dirt crystals when Zephyr called a halt. Jazz, she was somewhat relieved to note, only had three bags herself, while the villagers all had at least one large basket heaped high with the brown ovoids apiece. And there were still plenty of undisturbed weeds! Thank goodness they were leaving them for another cycle. 

Amusingly, Prowl discovered Sundance had given up on watching the pile of weeds to shelter in it instead, using their shade to keep the sun off her black plating. "Are you done yet?" she meowed plaintively.

“I hope so,” Prowl mewed back. It looked like it, at least. Everyone seemed to be gathering near Scratch, approaching fearlessly. The big grazer had four baskets tied to his back now, and they were all being piled high with the crystals. They made a dull ringing sound as they knocked against each other and settled. 

"Y'wanna stay here’n break up th'vines?" Jazz asked. "More work, but y'don't have'ta carry th'crystals back."

Prowl weighed her options, and the crystals in her bags. "How hard's breakin' up th'vines?" Carrying the crystals back over the rugged terrain wasn't exactly appealing, but, "M’hands're really startin' t'hurt."

"Coo~ruu… beautiful… " Jazz took her hands and carefully examined the cuts and scratches. "Definitely don't wanna break up th'vines with those. We'll git'cha back t'th'village an' git'cha all bandaged up, ’kay?"

"’Kay." Jazz still fussed over her injuries, worrying over her inefficient self-repair even though it continued to improve the longer she was in Polyhex. Sometimes her concern was irritating; she wasn't fragile! But this was one of those times where it felt nice to be taken care of, and Prowl wasn’t going to complain. "Did I do okay?"

"Did fine, beautiful," Jazz cooed, smiling. "Ain't used t'this’s all, an’ that’s fine."

"Ain't." What excavation she'd done in Praxus with her burgeoning archeology program hadn't been like this. There she'd been directing her students more than doing any of the actual digging, and when she  _ had _ personally picked up the tools, she'd never worked for so long without pause. "Wanted t'do a good job though."

"Did." Jazz went and put one of her bags on Scratch, then took one of Prowl's. “Let’s go.”

The trek down to the village was pretty much the same as the trek up. This time Jazz sang as they walked, climbed, and forded, another variation on the chant-song, and Zephyr and the other villager who hadn’t stayed to break up vines joined in. Prowl was too tired to do more than watch her footing and her doors without dropping her sack of dirt crystals.

Sundance, thankfully, didn’t ask to be carried. 

The village had nothing on a Praxan city in terms of the comforts Prowl wanted after so much hard work when it came into view, but it was a familiar sight, and right about now, a very welcome one.

"What happens t'these next?" she asked as they unloaded the crystals next to the appropriate storage shed. "They ain't chuno yet, right?"

"Ain't," Jazz confirmed. "Don't eat ’em, th’juice’s poison."

Prowl was glad now that she hadn't tried tasting the crystal she'd cut up earlier. 

"We'll take ’em up fer th’next step next sunrise," Zephyr said beside them, unfastening the bulky panniers from Scratch’s sides. The large spirit had knelt down so they were resting on the ground, making the job somewhat easier on him. "Could use th'help again."

"I'll help," Prowl volunteered immediately.

Jazz made a face, but then shrugged. "Pack up yer tent then. They'll wanna leave b'fore sunrise tomorrow."

"Oh. Is it a long way?"

"Yeah. Gonna have'ta stay overnight." Jazz grinned. "An' it's cold."

"Gonna keep me warm then?" Prowl grinned at her.

"Will!"

Teasing aside, that was something Prowl still hadn’t quite fully internalized: that it didn't matter if people overheard, or even saw, you interfacing. She flushed a bit reflexively at the thought, then firmly pushed it aside. She didn’t have the energy to get worked up about it now.

“C’mon.” Jazz took her hands tenderly in hers. “Let’s get these seen to.”

“’Kay.” She was tired, which would make the walk feel that much longer both ways, but the allure of warm water had Prowl asking, “Can we go t’th’springs after?”

Jazz didn’t squeeze their scratched hands, but she gave the impression of having done so in her field. “Sure thing, beautiful.”

They didn’t have long to relax in the pools before sunset, not and still have time to pack for the trip, but Prowl was glad they’d gone. Nor were they the only mechs who’d come here from the dirt crystal fields. One of the medium-warm pools was just the right temperature to soothe aching cables without aggravating sun-scorched plating, and Jazz had let her lean against her rather than the rock after wrapping her hands so well the bandages didn’t come loose at all in the water. Prowl was feeling much more like herself by the time Jazz said they had to go.

Back at the village, they went out to the kattumaram first. Jazz had stayed with the boat with Ricochet the night before, sticking to the “warrior’s area” like she had on Harvest instead of staying with Prowl (and Crux) in her spot. There didn’t seem to be the same stigma to wandering between the designated areas on Rainclouds: where Jazz had been barely welcome in the camp with all the newlings on Harvest, she had free rein of her home island and respect almost on par with Zephyr or Leaf. The boat was her home too though, and Prowl understood her desire to stay with it. There was a part of her, though she didn’t voice it, that shared it.

Ricochet poked her head up groggily from the sleeping pad as they climbed onboard. “Make a little more noise, why don’cha?” she complained. “Some people’re tryin’ ta nap!”

“Woulda woke ya anyway when I pushed ya over t’make room,” Jazz said, answering the unasked question of where she was staying tonight. “Gotta git some rest so I can go up with Prowl tomorrow.”

“Go up?”

“T’make chuno,” Prowl said, then laughed when Ricochet made the same face Jazz had earlier. “What is it? Both’a ya’re actin’ like it’s somethin’ terrible.”

“’S  _ villager  _ work,” Ricochet sneered. “Doin’ it once cuz ya don’t know any better’s one thing, but  _ ya,” _ she looked from Prowl to her twin, “ain’t got no business goin’ up there.”

“Do so,” Jazz countered, patting Prowl’s shoulder. The two of them stared off, a silent battle of wills that ended with Ricochet scoffing and rolling back over in the sleeping hull. “’S what I thought.”

“Just remember y’brought it on yerself.”

“Ominous much?” Prowl muttered. “Is it really that bad?” she asked Jazz.

“Depends what bothers ya,” Jazz said honestly. “Ain’t so bad we ain’t gonna make it though.”

“Lovely.” 

“Pfft. Y’ain’t changed yer mind just cuz Rico tried t’scare ya,” Jazz laughed. “Know ya better’n that.”

“Not from where  _ I’m  _ layin’,” came a just-loud-enough-to-overhear grumble.

“Shut up,” Jazz said cheerfully. “Yer curious. Should do it, an’ I’ll be right there with ya.  _ Shut up,”  _ she tacked on before Ricochet could say anything else. She wrapped Prowl up in a hug and gave her a quick kiss. “Now go get some rest. I’ll git ya when it’s time.”

Leaving the twins to whatever argument she’d accidentally started, Prowl returned to her tent and packed up one of her sleeping tarps along with some other supplies so she could grab them and go in the morning. She made gratuitous use of her Unseen Servant spell getting everything squared away to make up for the lack of dexterity the bandages on her hands caused, and as soon as she was done, settled into her hammock to recharge.

The hammock swayed gently back and forth with the wind, rocking a bit more when Sundance reappeared and jumped up to nest on Prowl’s side. The movement was both like and unlike the movement of a boat on the waves, with a bit of feeling like constantly falling thrown in. If it weren’t for the fact that it was blissfully sand free, Prowl might have gone back to sleeping in a hollow instead. Either way she would have had to deal with the lack of privacy. She was one of the few that was diligent about keeping her tarp positioned so it covered both sides of her nest. Almost everyone else kept theirs over just one side unless it was raining. 

She had yet to figure out if it was an indicator of wealth (or lack thereof) or if it was just personal preference for those who simply dug a sleeping hollow in the sand and didn’t bother with a tarp at all unless it was raining.

Which it was still doing a good amount of. The "dry" season in Polyhex was a bit of a misnomer in her opinion, since even now they were visited by rain clouds at least once a decacycle. The capital in Praxus sometimes didn’t see rain for three times that long!

"Wet," Sundance complained, snuggling close against Prowl's plating. Case in point, it had started raining just as she’d turned in for the night, the rhythmic, heavy drops on the tarp a familiar sound.

"Not wet in here." Prowl tucked her remaining blanket back in where she'd burrowed under it. "Go to sleep. We're going to be getting up early."

Exhausted from the day's work, Prowl's recharge was deep and dreamless.

She woke to Jazz shaking her gently. "Mornin', beautiful."

"Mmm… mornin'," Prowl mumbled, onlining her optics to the darkness of pre-dawn. "Can't be time t'leave already?"

"Eating first," Jazz said, but she didn't deny that it was definitely time to be up. It was still dark outside her tarp!

"Mmnf." Prowl felt around in the blankets. "Sundance?" The importance of knowing where her spirit guide was before she accidentally spilled her out of the hammock (or worse, got her tangled up in it) was something she’d learned already. "Where are you?"

"Mmmmm…" the cat purred from somewhere near her bumper.

Prowl moved an arm to support her as she rolled to her feet, then tucked her in with the blanket as she left it behind. "What're we eatin'?" she asked Jazz.

"Hupa. Chuno'n fish." Jazz smiled, showing her fangs. "Maybe hexbugs." 

"’Kay." Chuno and fish and maybe bugs pretty much summed up what she'd eaten anytime she hadn't helped gather it. At least it tasted good enough, though too many cycles of it left Prowl longing for something fully  _ liquid. _ Or at least a spoon.

"How're yer hands doin?"

"They feel lots better." Prowl held her hands out for Jazz to examine, unable to see them herself in the dark.

Jazz carefully unwrapped the bandage weeds and probed the wounds gently. Prowl was amazed by how little they hurt. 

"They look good," Jazz announced. "Gonna leave th'weeds off. We ain't gonna be swimmin’r anythin' so should be fine."

"Good." It wasn't easy to do anything with all those bandages in the way. Prowl wasn't sorry to be rid of them, and just think! She'd had to wear bandages for cycles over similar cuts back at the beginning of the harvest season.

The rain had stopped overnight. Now everything was dripping. She could hear the water pattering down unevenly from the crystal trees under the ambient sounds of activity in the village. Their little group wasn’t the only one up and doing things; midday or midnight, it didn’t matter to people who could see in the dark. As she still had to occasionally remind herself, what was pitch black to her wasn't actually to the Polyhexians around her. 

Instead of casting a full Light spell, which would be disruptive to everyone else, Prowl summoned a series of Dancing Lights to make things easier for her. It was enough to avoid running into or tripping over things, and that was all she really needed. Nearby mechs cooed in appreciation of the display, or catcalled for her to make them various colors. Giggling, she obliged, turning several of the little glowing light-motes red, purple, green, and yellow.

“Those new sparkles?” Jazz asked.

“Different ones, that’s all.” Prowl wondered if they’d return to find Kindle copying them.

At the main fire they found the promised hupa. Just like it was on Harvest Island when not eaten directly from the sea, fish served in the village was cut into pieces small enough to chew, then water, miso and the chuno crystals were added and mixed over heat to make the fuel into a thick paste. Hexbugs were very often added, and unidentifiable as such until she bit into one. At least they were dead. When there was extra liquid to add, either from ripe kelapa or some other harvest that wouldn’t keep, the hupa thinned down into a soup that  _ almost _ satisfied Prowl's desire to drink her fuel rather than eat it, but it appeared she was out of luck this cycle. It was definitely more of a paste this morning. Pre-morning.

"So how far'r we goin'?" she asked Jazz as she alternated between fish bits and chuno glop.

"Up th'mountain," Zephyr answered, appearing beside them. "Past where th’snow doesn't ever melt." 

While hauling the entire harvest from last cycle? Maybe Ricochet’d had a point. "Remind me t'ask what I'm volunteerin' fer first next time," Prowl stage-whispered to Jazz. But she wasn't going to back out now; she very much wanted to see what happened to the dirt crystals and how they were made into chuno.

"Will," Jazz promised with a grin that meant she would do no such thing.

As soon as breakfast was over, Prowl returned to her hammock for her camping gear and her cat. Add to that a share of the dirt crystals, and she was fully loaded down as they set off toward the island's central peak. 

It was one of those things that looked deceptively close… right up until you started trying to get there. As usual there was no clear, straightforward path to follow, which both slowed them down and made the going harder. The crystals weren't heavy individually, but together they sure weighed a lot when you were hauling them over uneven ground, trying to balance them with an awkward bundle of camping gear. 

Fortunately there were breaks this time. Zephyr regularly called for a halt so everyone could sit for a moment, adjust what they were carrying, and occasionally have a snack. Prowl got to feed Scratch another of his favorite crystal treats, and took the time to play with Sundance when the cat wasn't off hunting for a snack of her own.

Gradually they climbed higher and higher along with the sun in the sky. The village — or at least some of the landed kattumaram — eventually became visible in the distance when they reached a certain height, and it was neat to see the fishing boats floating out in the sea like hexbugs on a pond. 

The novelty of the scenery played a big part in distracting Prowl from the physical hardships of the journey, for a little while at least. Unfortunately, as the day wore on, it became harder not to focus on the growing exhaustion she felt. Naturally it had to rain at one point, making it even harder to traverse the uneven ground without slipping and falling. Again Prowl wasn't the only one who fell, though unlike when the ground had shook, neither she nor the other femme were hurt. 

Jazz, of course, never fell.

There wasn't a great deal of conversation or singing, except when they stopped to rest. Everyone was too busy with the effort of climbing the mountain, which left Prowl's processor piling up questions there wasn't a good opportunity to ask. It was clear even without asking that for once they were working with an actual timetable though. Zephyr had a set schedule in mind that he kept them to, and an idea of somewhere they were trying to get to by a certain time. Prowl wondered how close they were when they reached the first traces of snow on the ground. How much farther up the mountain did it never melt?

The snow, predictably, did not make the journey any easier than the rain had. It got deeper as they climbed, until Prowl was simultaneously too cold and overheating from exertion. Her systems worked hard to slog through the slush, even with Scratch obligingly breaking up the drifts for the mechs and femmes following in the grazer's wake, and she especially felt the cold when they stopped. 

Wet mist turned to icicles on their armor. It was getting hard to draw enough air into her engine to keep herself moving, and Prowl was very seriously contemplating the merits of dropping down in the snow to be carried back down the mountain when they broke through what she realized had been a cloud. The clouds.

She was above the  _ clouds. _

"Jazz!" she (didn't!) squealed. "We're above th'clouds!"

Jazz chuckled. Her systems weren't straining as hard as Prowl's, but she wasn't doing as well as the villagers either. "Are."

It was an incredible feeling, being up so high above the world. The capital in Praxus stood in a mountain valley, but Prowl had never gone — never been allowed to go — up into the surrounding peaks. Now here she was, unable to see the village they’d left behind through the clouds obscuring the path they’d followed. She had to cast her gaze outward to see beyond them to the jungle and the sea far below. And still they weren’t at the top! The mountain continued ahead of them, wreathed in wisps of thinner cloud and… smoke?

“Is somethin’ on fire?” she asked, pointing to the white column rising from the mountain itself in the distance.

“No. Yes.” Jazz shook her head. “Probably  _ is _ fire, but ain’t anythin’  _ on _ fire. Does that sometimes.” 

“’S’safe,” Zephyr added. “Leaf’n I both just checked’n we ain’t goin all th’way t’th’basin.”

“What’s th’basin?”

“’S’a… hole? Bowl?” Jazz shrugged. “At th’top’a th’mountain. Most’a th’islands have ’em.”

Prowl continued to watch the smoke, trying to estimate how far away the source was — and how large the fire had to be to produce so much of it. Larger than any of the campfires in Polyhex, for sure. The closest thing in her memory to the size of the column was the smoke from the foundries on the outskirts of the capital when they were running full-tilt, and she was pretty sure that had been smaller. “Ain’t ever seen a smokin’ mountain before,” she said, awed. “Prax mountains don’t do that.”

“Didn’t see any,” Jazz confirmed when Zephyr and several others looked at her.

“Coulda been there while they were sleepin’,” one of the villagers suggested.

“If th’mountains ever smoked, I’d’ve heard’a it,” Prowl said firmly. There was no record of such a thing in any of the kingdom’s archives, and she should know! She’d combed through them all looking for clues to pre-Galifarian Praxus and found nothing more remarkable than the locations of several temples that had been converted to secular purposes after the empire’s dissolution. “It’s safe though? Yer sure?”

“Smoke means fire,” Zephyr explained succinctly, “but there’s always fire in th’mountains. Keahi’n ’er Hounds live in their sparks. It don’t mean anythin’s gonna happen.”

“Their magic’d tell ’em if it was,” Jazz said, patting Prowl’s shoulder.

That must be what he’d meant by he and Leaf had “checked”. Prowl leaned into Jazz’s touch and smiled. “’Kay. Is still a neat thing t’see.”

Jazz tilted her head, looking up at the trail of smoke coming from the mountain as though considering what it might be like to look at it without ever seeing it before. “Kinda is,” she concluded.

“It’ll still be there t’look at while we walk,” Zephyr said. “Need t’keep movin’.”

Oops. Prowl hadn’t meant to hold them up. “’Kay,” she said, and resumed walking.

Now, above the clouds it could have come from, the snow began to thin. They continued until they found a clear area, a place where the ground was covered in frost but no snow. Prowl didn't even realize they'd stopped for more than another brief rest until everyone started pulling their dirt crystals out of their bags and spreading them out over the ground.

"Wha— really? We brought ’em all th'way up here just t'leave ’em on th'ground?"

Several mechs huffed out brief laughs while others looked at her incredulously. "’S'waste'a time t'build somethin' fer ’em," one heckled. "Zephyr picks a different spot every time."

"Then… I should just put these anywhere?" Prowl pulled out a crystal and began looking for a good place for it, careful not to step on anyone else's handiwork.

"Someplace where it'll be exposed," the same villager informed her. "On a rock, not next ta ’r under it."

"’Kay." It seemed odd to her, but Prowl supposed if they'd wanted to protect the crystals from the cold, it would have been much easier to do so by not dragging them all the way up here. 

Again she watched the others for any nuances in how to spread out the crystals. Exposed on the rock, yes, but also not touching one another, and none too close to a drop where a gust of wind might blow them off. Prowl laid out all the crystals in her bag, making sure to get every last one. 

Just what was supposed to happen to them now? They would freeze, yes, but crystals froze all the time in Praxus. If it did anything, it made them brittle and they cracked; it didn't make them edible.

“Y’look confused,” Jazz said, coming up beside her when her bags were empty.

“Don’t see what good this’ll do,” Prowl admitted, shivering slightly. “But I guess it must work somehow.”

“Does.” Her mate’s arms wrapped around her in a chilly hug. “Just wait’n see!”

With the last dirt crystal on the ground, it was time to hike back down the mountain to a suitable campsite. Zephyr led them all to a small outcropping where they would be somewhat sheltered from the cold and everyone broke out their tents. Jazz and Prowl weren't the only ones to double or even triple up for warmth. After another meal, a more substantial one than they'd had each break hiking up, Zephyr and Scratch fell asleep in a big heap. One of the femmes joined him, and the other three piled on top of each other in their tent. 

Last cycle, Prowl had been teasing. Usually Jazz keeping her "warm" meant interfacing, but now it wasn't a joke. They  _ needed _ the warmth, and both were too tired to do anything but sleep. Bundled up as close as she could get to Jazz (Sundance tucked herself in between them, the lucky little pest), Prowl's idle musings about frozen crystals transitioned into vague wisps of dreams where the dirt crystals sprouted giant frost spires reaching up into the sky through layer after layer of clouds…

Prowl was surprised when she and Jazz were allowed to sleep for several joors past sunrise. The scent of fuel heating (chuno and fish again, this time with shavings of a spicy crystal added) was what woke her. Jazz was still in recharge, which made Prowl reluctant to come out, despite the enticing smell.

Finally Jazz stirred. "’Lo, beautiful," she said with a soft and sleepy smile. She rolled over and stretched like a cybercat (waking a complaining Sundance in the process), letting the cold air into their relatively warm cocoon.

Cold and stiff herself, Prowl had to admit that stretching sounded like a very good idea.

So did fuel.

“Cold,” Sundance announced helpfully.

“I’m aware,” Prowl said, shivering at the distractingly cold paws parked on her shoulder. “It will be better if we keep moving.”

“She okay?” Jazz asked.  _ Are you okay? _

Prowl nodded. “We’ll be fine.”

They all made quick work of packing up as soon as they finished eating, then made their way back to where they'd laid out the dirt crystals. 

"Ohhh… what happened to ’em?" Prowl asked, carefully picking one up. Many of them had cracked, but they were now all the dull bluish-white of chuno, inside and out. "I didn't think th'cold'd do that much all by itself!"

"Cold'n dry," Zephyr said from where he was gathering up his own and all the ones that had been loaded onto Scratch for the climb. "’S'why we gotta come up so high, above th'war season rains. If it ain't dry, it don't work."

"Th'energon's part'a th'solid crystal," another mech said. "Poison's liquid. Cold freezes it, cracks th'crystal, then when th'sun comes up it melts an' drains out, leavin' it safe t'eat, but very, very dry."

"An' that's why it's so powdery," Prowl connected the dots. "How'd ya learn t'do it like this?" With a simple — labor-intensive where transportation was concerned, but otherwise simple — process they were naturally refining energon! How impressive!

"From a star named Winternight," Zephyr replied, in the way Prowl had learned meant he was referring to a mech who was deceased, and may or may not be mythical. "Back then th'dirt crystals only grew up on the peaks, about th'only thing that did in some areas. We knew about ’em, but they were deadly t'eat. Then, in a time when fishin' was growin' scarce, an' mechs an' femmes were starving, Winternight was drawn up t'th'high peaks lookin' fer ’er spirit. Almost froze," he said, and the others chuckled. "She saw th'tupai diggin' up th'dirt crystals an'leavin' ’em out on th'rocks overnight before bringin' ’em back t'their burrows. Since she hadn't found ’er spirit, but was still drawn t'be up ’ere, she started makin' a pile'a ’er own t'see ’er through ’er search. Wound up spendin’ nearly a season up ’ere, an' it wasn't ’til she had a nice collection that a tupai came'n told ’er she was ’er spirit, an' t'take ’er stockpile down t'share with ’er starvin' village."

Another tale of learning from the spirits… Polyhex sure had a lot of those. Most mainlanders would probably find them silly or purely anecdotal, but Prowl had learned better. There really were spirits that helped the islanders, directly and indirectly. The only thing she thought to question was, "What's a tupai?"

"Little burrower with a long tail," Jazz chimed in. "Good t'eat, if y'can catch ’em." The villagers nodded in agreement; apparently they weren't above eating the kin to even so helpful a spirit.

"They're hidin' now, like sensible prey," Zephyr said when Prowl looked around. "We'll leave ’em some chuno as thanks fer teachin' us how t'find th'fuel we needed, an' fer lettin' us use their freeze-dryin' spot fer th'night."

"How much d'we need t'leave?" 

"Just a few."

"’Kay." Prowl couldn't remember how many she'd had to start, but she made sure to leave behind one of the crystals from the area she recollected from. She felt more confident when she saw Jazz doing the same, leaving one from a group of crystals on the ground for the local tupai population—

"Prwwl!" A  _ freezing _ cold paw scratched at her foot as she was securing her bag. "Llk!"

—a population she suspected had just been reduced by one.

With a slight sense of dread, Prowl glanced down. Sundance was all scratched up, presumably from chasing the thing through the rocks and into its burrow. It looked something like a very large glitchmouse, or a chubby turborat, with a plume of fuzz-like wires growing along its long tail. 

It was also, undeniably, dead. Apprehensive to see the others' reaction to her familiar hunting a creature they were currently in the process of leaving food for, Prowl looked up apologetically.

_ "Cats," _ Zephyr scoffed and glared at Jazz, who was grinning and puffing her armor in pride at the catch like it had been her own doing.

"That's… good job," Prowl managed, still feeling awkward. "Please tell me you're going to eat that."

"Of  _ course _ I'm going to eat it!" Sundance meowed, putting the tupai corpse down. "I wanted to show it to you first!"

"Well, thank you." That was much easier than the things she brought Prowl for  _ her _ to eat, though she was much better about bringing her things she actually liked eating now than she had been in the past. And Jazz would eat absolutely anything Sundance brought to her, so things never went to waste. 

Since it  _ was _ already dead, and Prowl was as curious as her familiar, she picked up the tupai, turning it over in her hands to get a better look. It really did look like a turborat with a plume on its tail. Its plating was mostly white, with the occasional splotch of red or black. It was hard to think of it as something other than vermin. How could a creature like this have anything to teach mechs and femmes? But obviously it had, and was honored for it.

Once she got past the initial  _ eeek! _ reaction that had almost been trained into her by palace servants, it was actually somewhat… cute.

She giggled. Probably shouldn't be thinking of it as cute when Sundance was about to dismember it. "Thank you for showing me," she said, setting the little thing back down in front of her cat.

"Take it somewhere else to eat it," Zephyr said, addressing Sundance directly. "Don't want th'corpse scarin' ’em off'a this spot."

"Pfft. Wasn't going to eat it  _ here." _ Sundance sniffed as though that had never been her intention in the first place. "Too cold." Daintily she picked up the carcass and leapt up onto Prowl's shoulder ( _ cold feet!) _ to tuck it into her folded-up tent for later.

Zephyr nodded, satisfied, and they all returned to work.

They still had the trek down the mountain ahead of them before Prowl could fall in her hammock and sleep for a decacycle.

.

.

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	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter warnings:** Natural disasters

.

.

.

Captain Auroram of the Galifarian warship _Skylark_ was… fascinating and disturbing. Prowl’s continued translation efforts revealed that about two thirds of the log was the ship’s compiled supply and discipline records. Energon used, spoiled, stolen, loaded. Munitions loaded and fired. Mechs in trouble, for what, and what punishments had been meted out. In and around that, however, she found the mech’s personal logs, his journal, and the more she read, the less she liked him. He was a practical and capable seamech, overseeing the _Skylark’s_ early escort missions to protect merchant ships from Polyhexian and “remnant” pirates, whatever those were, with admirable efficiency. But he was also a religious fanatic, a devotee of Primus, Unicron and the earthbound gods that ruled the empire. When he’d proved his mettle and been assigned to the _Glorious’_ fleet, to set out and conquer the Polyhexian islands, he’d been ecstatic to bring an end to their threat and finally bring the “heathens” under proper rulership of the true gods.

Prowl sat frowning at the passage she’d just finished working her way through:

 

> _The Heathens have such great treasures of the Sea, though they be inferior in every other way. Such Gems should not be left to languish as barbarian Ornaments, but should enrich Our Empire.  
>  _
> 
> _The Sea is the last place upon this World left for the Gods to conquer. These hoarders shall not stand before the might of the Empire anymore than the heathens crushed a mere few generations ago. It is an Honor to have been chosen for such a mission._

The mech had absolutely no interest in or respect for the native people of the islands or their culture. To him, they were nothing more than an obstacle to get out of the way before exploiting the physical riches of Polyhex. The same riches some parties back in Praxus were keen to get their hands on more easily as a result of her marriage. Not surprising, since Praxus was descended from Galifar and valued many of the same things, but it was an upsetting parallel.

“You’ve been staring at that same page for ages.”

“Have I?” Prowl shook herself and looked up to see Sundance watching her with concern in her optics. “I was lost in thought more than the page.”

Galifar had been expansionist. Galifar had crushed and _erased_ everything on the mainland the empire could reach. Those were known historical facts. Her own inability to find much beyond traces of what Praxus had been like before the empire only proved what everyone already knew. She shouldn’t be so upset by confirmation that the Empire of the Gods had tried to do the same to Polyhex. Except in this case, it wasn’t a matter of mere curiosity about what had existed before the empire; she knew now, intimately, what would have been utterly obliterated had it not been for a geographical quirk, a reef of mildly poisonous Teeth, protecting the islands from such invasions.

She had her duty to Praxus, her responsibilities as an ambassador. She’d been struggling to make sure she fulfilled them. What she was translating had unexpectedly brought up another responsibility; one she hadn’t been fully aware of, but now that she was, could not ignore. She was Prowl of Rainclouds, not just Praxus. That meant doing right by them too, and all of Polyhex, as _their_ representative on the mainland.

“I think,” she said slowly, reaching out to pet Sundance, “that I may have a problem of conflicting interests.”

The cybercat clambered up onto Prowl’s lap, looking down at the page. Reading it? Probably. Sundance understood and remembered magics no mage — at least, no learned mage, like Prowl — could. It had never occurred to her to think her own familiar couldn’t read.

“Don’t like him,” she finally announced. “Too bad I can’t bite him.”

Prowl chuckled. “Agreed. He deserves to get bitten.” Perhaps it would turn out he had been, and by something much larger and deadlier than Sundance. She already knew how his last mission ended: wrecked upon the Teeth, easy prey for Polyhexian warriors and sharkticons alike.

No wonder the Polyhexian relationship with their sharkticon god was complicated. Unlike the children of the Koka god, who just preyed on mechs and subsequently had no redeeming role in their mythology, sharkticons were both a threat and their protection from the outside. With those shipwrecks out on the Teeth, they could hardly forget that there were those beyond who meant them harm, or why no past attempt had succeeded.

How many attempts had there been? How many ships had been caught on the Teeth and eaten by the sea over the vorns? Ships were made of metal, and metal didn’t last forever; it was only luck that the storms hadn’t tossed the _Skylark_ beneath the waves completely. Prowl couldn’t even begin to estimate how many vessels might be hidden in the depths, sunk after decaying on the Teeth.

Were any of them Praxan?

Not in Bluestreak’s reign, of course. Not even in his predecessor's, nor that of the king before him, but… It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. Auroram proved mechs — kings and emperors and more — had envied Polyhexian wealth for as far back as Praxus’ history went. Wealth that was almost an illusion. Pearls were valuable, true, and the islanders made ornaments out of practically anything that had a bit of shine to it, but… Fewer than ten thousand mechs in the whole nation, split into fractious clans, and Jazz’s hints of the possibility of famine. How “wealthy” could that nation truly be?

Prowl hugged Sundance close. “I didn’t think this book would give me so much to think about.”

“You think a lot.” The cat purred, rubbing her head against Prowl’s chin, wiggling into the best position to give (and receive!) affection. “If it had been a collection of love letters to his sweetspark on the mainland, you still would have immediately started overthinking it.”

“I would not!” Prowl lied. “Anyway, an ancient romance wouldn’t have quite the same bearing on the future as what _is_ here.”

“Still have a whole season and then some to figure it out,” Sundance meowed with complete confidence.

There was that. “You’re right. I don’t have to solve everything right now. I don’t even have to finish translating the whole book right now.” Though the temptation to continue was strong now that she was getting closer to the end of it. Plus it was quiet on the island this cycle, not much going on—

All thoughts of translating the book were put on hold as the first note of the calling horn shivered across her doors.

“What’s that?” Sundance mewed, flicking an ear and thwapping Prowl’s cheek in the process.

“I don’t know.” Prowl had yet to develop much of a lexicon with the tetere. She knew the call for incoming raiders, and Jazz’s (and Ricochet’s) personal call, but beyond that all she could do was follow the sound and find someone to ask. Setting Sundance down, she packed up the book and her journal and stood to do just that. “Let’s find out.”

The call was coming from higher up the mountain. Prowl had come up to the springs for some privacy so she could get some actual work done — Crux was a sweetspark, but for all her interest and good intentions, she was the opposite of helpful when it came to this sort of thing — and to have the option of soaking in the warm water around translating. The latter hadn’t panned out when she’d arrived to find the pools so hot that scalding steam was visibly rising from them, but she’d stayed regardless, and it put her in a better position to track down the caller than if she’d been all the way back in the village.

“Wait,” Sundance called after only a short distance. “It’s behind us now too.”

Prowl stopped to listen. “Are you sure?”

“My hearing is better than yours,” Sundance reminded her. Since her familiar could hear the clicking of a glitchmouse’s fuel pump from more than three meters away, Prowl didn’t argue with her. Behind her was toward the village, and Prowl was more comfortable going that way than deeper into the wilderness if there was a choice.

What was going on? Something about it seemed urgent. Still, she tried to tell herself it might just be a mech passing gossip or saying hello to a friend… until a third horn joined the chorus from the village, repeating the same brisk pattern.

As soon as she stepped into the loosely defined edge of the village, she could tell something was definitely wrong. All around her, mechs and femmes were packing up their things, even people who were usually asleep this time of day.

“What in Primus’ name…?” Prowl walked up to the nearest mech. “’Scuse me. What’s goin’ on?”

“Leavin’,” the mech said shortly. “Go on. Ain’t got a lotta time’n th’fuel needs t’be th’first thing on when th’boats git in.”

“Leavin’?” But he obviously wasn’t willing to take the time to explain beyond that. Prowl shook her head and jogged over to her tent. She could pack first and ask questions after. In fact… Her tent was easily taken down and packed up, but not everyone lived so compactly. Very quickly she had all of the possessions she didn’t usually carry at all times in a tight bundle, and, taking it with her, she went to find Wheeljack.

“Need any help?” she called out as she approached his den.

“Yeah.” He stacked another packed crate on top of the ones he’d already sealed. “Take these down t’th’riverbank. Gonna need ’em, an’ they’ll git left behind in th’rush t’git th’food packed.”

Another mech, this one out on the water, let off another call in the same pattern. The sound skittered down her spinal struts like ice.

“Can ya tell me what’s goin’ on?” Prowl asked, testing the weight of the crates before picking two of them up.

“We’re leavin’,” Wheeljack said grimly, though less impatiently than the other mech. “Leaf saw somethin’ so she checked th’ground with ’er magic. Somethin’ th’mountain said back spooked ’er, so we’re gonna spend a few sunrises out at sea.”

“That’s a thing?” Of course it was a thing; they were already doing it. “An’ we have’ta take _everything?”_

“Could be more’n a few sunrises.”

“I see.” She didn’t really, but the sense of urgency all around her made it impossible to stand still asking questions. “Be right back,” she said, and set off for the river.

“Prowl!” Crux ran up to pace her, carrying the single blanket and the pearl strands she’d claimed from Jazz’s successful raid, both wrapped around her single bronze knife. “What’s going on?”

“Everyone needs t’go out t’sea fer a few sunrises, apparently. I don’t know much more’n that myself.” She looked at Crux’s light burden. “Can ya help me move these fer Wheeljack?”

“Sure!”

Together they got the raid spells and antidotes moved to the riverbank. Crates and baskets and barrels of fuel were already sitting on the sand, waiting to be loaded up. Nearby, bundles of personal belongings were laid out as well.

Already things were being loaded onto the few kattumaram currently anchored here, those of fishermechs who preferred going out at night, or others who only needed to travel between islands occasionally. There wasn’t anywhere near enough room on them, but as she looked up Prowl saw the first of the fishing boats returning, landing on the sand instead of their usual places out in the bakau-docks.

“Wow. It really is a full-scale evacuation.” Even so, Prowl doubted that everything would fit on the assorted kattumaram. There was just too much _stuff;_ probably would have been even before the recent additions of newly fermenting miso and freshly dried chuno.

“Which one’re we supposed t’go on?” Crux asked when she spotted the fishing boats, more excited than anxious.

“Dunno,” Prowl answered. “Wheeljack!” she hailed the priest-mage joining the crowd. “Can we stay with ya?”

“Yeah. This one’s ours.” As graceful a climber as any aouli, he scurried across the ropes, ladders, and poles to one of the larger kattumaram, one of the ones that had low shelters built on the deck. He turned and waved.

Crux didn’t bother with the ropes, opting to just cut through the water to reach the boat. Prowl was forced to do the same, though Sundance had no problem following Wheeljack and keeping her paws above the water. She climbed up the forward mast as soon as she was onboard, perching at the top where she could survey the activity below.

“Gotta paddle ’er in t’git ’er loaded up,” Wheeljack said, tossing them each an oar once Crux and Prowl hauled themselves up onto the deck. “Get yer stuff, then go back up fer Leaf’s. She’n ’er party have a long walk back an’ they might not have time when they git back t’pack.”

“’Kay.” Prowl applied herself to propelling the kattumaram toward the shore. The larger boat was _heavy,_ and not easy to get moving. “Who all went with ’er?”

“Coil, Feral, Overboard, an’ Blitz,” Wheeljack grunted between his own paddles.

“I dunno where Overboard nests.”

“I do,” Prowl told Crux. “I’ll get his stuff’n Coil’s if ya git Feral’n Blitz’s.” She didn’t know where they slept, so that worked out fine.

“’Kay.”

Three more people climbed up onto the boat without so much as asking permission and grabbed oars, helping push it toward shore. There was a space on the riverbank reserved for it, Prowl saw, but she was very glad she wasn’t the one who had to steer the massive kattumaram into it. The bank was crowded with fishing boats, enough so that there were several lurking on the opposite bank, waiting for a space to open up before zipping in to be loaded up with things and people.

“I’ll just wait here,” Sundance yowled from her perch when they reached the shore. “Hurry.”

Prowl looked up as she handed off her oar. Several other spirits were sitting atop the masts next to her cat now, and the slight tremor in her meow had Prowl worrying about what they were telling her. What were they fleeing from?

“C’mon!”

“Ack!”

_Splash!_

Crux had grabbed her arm and pulled her along as she jumped off the deck. Prowl stumbled in the slippery river mud, but the newling steadied her. “Warn me next time!” Prowl admonished.

“Y’hear th’forest?” Crux asked, instead of replying or apologizing.

“Um…” Prowl tried to hear anything over the bustle of activity along the river. “No?”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Never heard th’birds so quiet before.”

Now that she mentioned it, the lack of sound was rather remarkable. Even the kokako, which always hung around the village hoping to steal something shiny or tasty, were gone, and _nothing_ scared them off! “This’s all startin’ t’make me really nervous.”

Crux nodded, then darted off to pack up their clanmates’ belongings without a word.

By the time Prowl returned to the river with Coil, Overboard, and Leaf’s belongings, there were far fewer kattumaram along the bank. The people still loading those remaining worked in a terse near-silence, sparing no time for idle conversation.

Wheeljack took her bundles as she passed them up onto the large kattumaram, which now boasted even more spirits among the sails, including Scratch’s bulky form near the base of the second mast. “What should I do now?”

“Git th’last’a th’food onboard. Few mechs went t’th’fields t’harvest what they can.”

“Call ’em back,” Zephyr said from where he was checking to make sure crates were sealed before they went onto the boat. Wheeljack looked at him, then lifted his calling horn to his lips without question. “Up y’git.” Zephyr turned his attention to Crux. “Kindle, Cricket’n th’rest’re ’counted fer. Ain’t leavin’ any’a ya behind.”

“Don’t wanna be left behind,” Crux said before scampering up onto the boat and calling to Prowl. “Hand me somethin’!”

Relieved to hear all the newlings were accounted for, Prowl focused on getting everything loaded. It was heavy work, made harder by how fast they were going, but she pushed through. It wouldn’t be much longer now.

Together Prowl and Crux and Zephyr got the rest of their pile loaded. Others came and climbed aboard with additional sacks of kelapa, unprocessed dirt crystals, and other random crystals without bothering to sort them. Leaf and her volunteers came through the now empty village at a run, joining them on the boat despite the gympie burns on both Feral and Overboard’s hands and arms.

“Git ya fixed up soon as we’re settled,” Wheeljack promised. With a practiced motion, they shoved off of the bank and into the river, one of the last boats to abandon the village site.

“What were ya doin’?” Crux asked, flinching at the sight of the burns.

“Transportin’ seed crystals,” Leaf said. “We found a good place fer ’em, but th’forest was disturbed’n they didn’t wanna go in th’ground.”

“So what’d ya do with ’em?” Prowl asked, slightly dreading the answer.

She was right that she wouldn’t like it; silently, Leaf opened up a tightly bound sailcloth bag, just enough for them to see the bright pink crystals inside. She closed it up quickly, not that anyone was going to touch that thing _now._

Crux hid behind Prowl anyway. “Keep ’em away from me,” she whimpered.

“They’ll be stored carefully,” Leaf said calmly. “But they deserve a chance t’survive same ’s all life.”

Prowl wasn’t sure she agreed on that point with this particular plant, but there were more concerning things in what the priest-mage just said. “Survive?” she repeated. “What’s that mean? What’s gonna happen t’Rainclouds?”

“Maybe nothin’,” Zephyr said, leaning against Scratch. “Th’ground’s disturbed. Got too much fire beneath it. Keahi’s found somethin’. Hounds’ll start diggin’ soon, if they haven’t already.”

“Why go t’all this trouble if it might be fer nothin’?”

“Ain’t worth th’lives ya’d lose if it turns out it ain’t nothin’,” Prowl told the newling softly. She didn’t know what sort of disaster they were facing here, but she understood preventative evacuations. Sea surges sometimes forced the people of Hightower and other coastal cities inland, and there were always some who refused to go. Sometimes they survived, but other times… “Some forces y’can’t do anything about ’cept get outta th’way.”

“Aka.” Wheeljack nodded solemnly.

The kattumaram rocked as it moved out past the breakers. Prowl could see the other boats nearby, bright sails on the water, floating over the reef. Eventually they drifted together, kattumaram, rafts, double-hulled canoes… all gathered out where the sea was a little calmer. There they anchored, far enough apart not to bump into each other, but more than close enough to swim from boat to boat easily. A little city — village — sitting on the water.

It was the most crowded together Prowl had ever seen them. For the first time she could actually see all — _almost_ all, since some of the warriors were out on a raid — of the mechs and femmes who called Rainclouds Island home at once. There were so many, and yet so very, very few.

Waving to their friends, mates, and cohorts, people started rearranging themselves so they were more organized. Mechs and femmes traded places to be on their preferred kattumaram, instead of whichever boat had happened to be leaving when they were ready to depart. Prowl would have moved to be with Jazz, but Jazz was one of those warriors who was out…

Wheeljack’s hand fell on Prowl’s shoulder and she looked at him. “Y’can stay ’ere as long as y’like.”

“Thanks.” She glanced back at the island. The mountain stood as an outline against the setting sun. “How long ’til we know…?”

“Leaf’n Zephyr’ll know.” Wheeljack sat on the edge of the kattumaram, trailing his feet into the water. “Forest went quiet though, there at th’end. Means it probly ain’t a false alarm.”

“So then… what’s actually gonna happen? Fire under th’ground, Keahi’s hounds diggin’, what’s that _mean?”_

Wheeljack just looked at her blankly. “Keahi’s th’fire goddess. She’s diggin’ fer treasure.”

“That’s not— oh, nevermind.” Prowl sighed, not feeling up to picking apart language and culture mismatches. Whatever the disaster would be, if it wasn’t a false alarm, she’d see for herself soon enough.

Wheeljack patted her on the back again, then climbed to his feet. She watched him start pulling out the glue and antitoxins he needed to heal the gympie stings on Feral and Overboard’s hands. At least they were localized this time.

Before Prowl could flounder for something to do—

“Come play with me!”

_Splash!_

“Crux!”

Prowl shook the water from her optics, suddenly glad for all that practise treading water Jazz foisted on her. Though, in retrospect, it was rather obvious why, during her swimming lessons, Jazz had leaped straight from nodding sympathetically while Prowl explained why she was hesitant to get into the water, to throwing her and Sundance in to figure it out on their own. Polyhexian newlings didn’t have the luxury of careful explanations and patient instruction; they fell, leaped, or were pushed into the water until it was as easy as walking on land for them.

“Come play with me, Prowl,” Crux repeated, swimming (literal) circles around the older femme. “There’s nothing happening _right now,_ is there?”

“I… guess not.”

“You were thinking too much again anyway,” Sundance meowed loudly.

“Oh, I was, was I?” Prowl glared up at her familiar, safely out of splashing distance. Pest. She was tempted to send a water jet up to get her anyway, but it would be a wasted effort, and besides, there really was nothing happening right now. Why not pass the time playing with Crux?

They splashed back and forth, circling each other in the water, laughing and shrieking while the busier adults looked on indulgently.

“Hi.” Cricket paddled over with several of the village turbodogs. One of them Prowl recognized as one of the puppies she’d been harvested with. “Can we play too?”

Kindle didn’t bother asking. “Look out below!”

_Splash!_

“Hey!” Prowl threw up her arms in a vain attempt to shield herself from the spray of his entry into the water. Laughing, she waited for him to resurface, then swung one of her doors through the water to send it arcing toward him in a miniature wave.

“Ack!”

“Serves ya right.”

It wasn’t long before she had all five of the newlings with her, clustered beside the large kattumaram. They were a perfect distraction, and Prowl played with them until she was too tired to keep herself afloat. They kept playing a little longer, but soon the lure of food drew them up onto the big kattumaram. Kindle was shooed back to eat with his mentor, but Cricket was invited to stay with her dogs.

“What’re we allowed t’take?”

“Chuno,” Wheeljack answered. “Spicy crystals, if y’wanna try an’ soak ’em a bit. Next sunrise we’ll see ’bout fishin’ an’ go from there.”

“’Kay.” She could deal with that. She started with just the chuno, but it wasn’t long before she was soaking some of the spicy crystals to go along with the bland fare. The result was _too_ spicy, but she was hungry and she ate the cold, hard energon anyway.

There didn’t seem to be any rules about where everyone would sleep on the kattumaram. She imagined that wasn’t the case when it was sailing, actually going somewhere with its proper crew, but for now Prowl ended up curled up on the deck in a pile of Crux-Cricket-and-turbodogs to recharge. It had the benefit of being very warm, and the company and her exertions made it easier to fall asleep in spite of her nerves trying to make a reappearance.

She woke suddenly some time later, not sure why, like those early cycles where she’d stirred at every distant crash of thunder. Only, it wasn’t thunder this time. The sky was dark and cloudless, with the stars spread out above them like an extra blanket. There was an underlying agitation in the camp, er, on the kattumaram that further set her teeth on edge though; a tension in the air she could almost feel on her plating.

“’S goin’ on?” she asked quietly, unsure who was awake and who wasn’t. Cricket definitely was, because she’d jolted her when she tried to sit up before remembering the pile she’d fallen asleep in.

“I dun—”

##  **_CRACK-BOOM!!_ **

“…!!”

Prowl couldn’t even hear herself scream over the sudden roar. Instinctively she flattened herself back down to the deck and felt the others around her doing the same. It was coming from Rainclouds: the noise, the concussive trembling in the air, the sudden rush of heat, all of it.

She looked up.

Part of the mountain was… gone. Just _gone._ A plume of smoke, lit red by an unimaginably massive fire, rose high into the sky from where the peak had once been. She couldn’t hear it through the ringing in her audios, but she could feel the thunder of dozens of lightning strikes as they twisted, crackling around the cloud.

The air tasted like stone, and ash began to fall on the kattumaram and its inhabitants.

There was another strut-shaking boom, one that rattled her down to her core, and an enormous plume of red erupted from the mountain like water from a fountain. The droplets, if they could be called that, glowed with fire as they rocketed into the sky, lighting up the column of ash behind them before going dark and being replaced by even more. So much fire!

Wheeljack came over and sat down, placing one hand on Prowl and holding the other out to the newlings. Prowl was not too proud to admit that she latched onto him exactly like Crux and Cricket did, all of them curling in to bury their heads against his plating.

Her doors flinched as the thunder and fire roared behind her.

_What was happening?!_

She screamed again and tasted ash when something bumped her shoulder. Looking up revealed Sundance’s glowing optics in the fiery darkness, and Prowl sobbed and grabbed her, tucking her up under her chest before turning back into Wheeljack. Would _anything_ he could have said if she’d pursued the topic earlier have prepared her for this? It felt like the world was ending, consumed in a cataclysm of fire and rock.

Eventually, an eternity later, the constant booming relented. Prowl’s audios slowly recovered to the point she could again hear the sobs and cries of the other newlings. Wheeljack and Leaf were both singing, trying to comfort them.

Everything was covered in a layer of ash, and Prowl couldn’t see any of the stars when she dared peek out from where she’d buried her head.

“W-what happened?” Her voice shook and cracked on the fear in her spark and the grit in her throat. “Is it over?”

Wheeljack didn’t answer. “Aka,” Zephyr spoke up when no one else did. “Fer now, at least.” He and Leaf looked at each other.

“Prolly gonna be more,” Leaf said. “Just th’hounds movin’ stuff outta ’er way.”

“That was Keahi,” Wheeljack explained softly.

“That”. All of “that”. Prowl tried, but couldn’t pull enough words together for a coherent sentence. If ever there was anything worthy of being called a god — or goddess — it was what she had just witnessed.

“Coo-ruuu,” Wheeljack soothed. “Safe out ’ere. Just gotta watch fer cinders buried in th’ash.”

Cinders in the ash? Prowl shook her doors in an effort to dislodge the stuff. It didn’t do much good. Most of it clung determinedly, and there was even more falling from the sky. How much was still up there? In the darkness she could only see the occasional flash of lightning in the thick, roiling clouds and the glow of the fire on the mountain.

“Don’t like this,” came a soft, pitiful mew. “Make it stop.”

She couldn’t make it stop. She couldn’t even put the visceral terror she was feeling into _words,_ much less do anything to actually affect this.

Wheeljack brushed off the ash and wrapped them both in a blanket, then pulled Prowl against his plating like she was a newling. “Ain’t gonna tell ya t’try’n sleep,” he murmured.

“Mhmm.” There was no way she was getting back to sleep, short of collapsing from exhaustion or using magic, and tempting as the latter was, she knew she couldn’t do it. What if something else happened and she needed to be awake to swim? And who knew how the spell would even work if she tried to cast it with divine-fire ash mixed into the spell? The only way she wasn’t getting the stuff all over her spell components was by leaving her bag firmly closed, at least until she adjusted her prestidigitation spell to remove it.

Clutching Sundance fretfully, Prowl curled up and shivered.

The booms and new flares of fire and lightning were tapering off, but hadn’t stopped entirely as dawn approached. The glow of the mountain was still brighter than the coming sun, and Prowl continued to hide from it, listening to the muted splashes of the ashy water against the nearby kattumaram. Every now and then she could hear Crux or Cricket whimper, or one of the adults talking with an impossible calm, and at one point she almost thought she could hear—

“Prowl!” Jazz’s voice echoed across the water, frantically worried.

“Fraggit, Jazz,” came Ricochet’s growl a nanoklik later.

“Gi’off’a— _Prowl!”_

“Jazz!” It was really her! Prowl bolted upright, desperately scanning the dark horizon. Her voice was weak from shouting and crying and didn’t carry worth a damn, so she threw everything she had into calling with her spark. _Here!_

 _Here!_ Jazz responded.

Prowl barely heard Ricochet cursing when she spotted Jazz, swimming frantically for the kattumaram.

Her mate pulled herself up and launched herself in a pounce, sweeping both Prowl and Sundance into a hug and showering them with kisses. Prowl tried to return them, but she was suddenly trembling too hard to do more than cling. “Jazz,” she whimpered, echoing Sundance’s meowed “Jazz!” as the cat set about rubbing her face on every inch of Jazz’s plating she could reach.

“Praise all th’gods’n spirits,” Jazz whispered intently. “I was so worried fer ya…”

“Stupid femme almost tried t’ _swim_ back from Bluethorn,” Ricochet drawled, easing their own, much smaller, kattumaram alongside and deftly anchoring it.

“Y’did?” Prowl’s helm fell against Jazz’s shoulder. “Dummy.”

“Saw th’mountain—”

“Everyone from Redtide t’Harvest saw th’mountain,” Ricochet put in.

“—an’ I knew y’wouldn’t understand th’tetere call if y’were out explorin’.” Jazz hugged her tighter. Prowl wasn’t complaining; right about now, she never wanted Jazz to let go of her again.

Her processor was starting to settle though, with time and her mate here. It was getting easier to think, though there was nothing she could do about how hoarse she sounded. “Didn’t understand it,” she admitted. “I’d gone up t’th’springs by m’self. Didn’t know what was goin’ on ’til I got back t’th’village, an’ even then… even _now_ I don’t understand.”

“Keahi… she’s beautiful’n terrible.” Jazz petted her; it had a very _checking all of Prowl’s plating for damage_ vibe. “She loves ’er mates,” which Prowl knew had a tendency to be mortals, “an’ ’er hounds, but she don’t care at all fer th’islands she builds, or anythin’ that lives on ’em. She just wants ’er treasure.”

Terrible Prowl would concede easily, but beautiful? In the moment she hadn’t been able to see any beauty in what was happening, but if she thought back, past the fear… “Ain’t ever felt somethin’ so powerful.”

“I bet.” Ricochet snorted. Jazz made a rude gesture at her.

“Fer what it’s worth, neither’ve I,” Wheeljack said. Prowl glanced over at him and saw he still had a lapful of Cricket and her puppies, and a Crux-shaped teretip clinging to his side. “That was th’loudest I’ve ever heard th’mountain roar. Gonna be interestin’ t’see what’s left, come daylight.”

“Ain’t gonna be safe t’go back come daylight,” Leaf warned. “Th’hounds’re still diggin’.”

“Still.”

“Gonna have’ta break up’n go fishin’…”

Prowl felt a skitter of apprehension go through everyone’s EM fields. “Fishin’ ain’t gonna be great ’til th’ash settles,” Coil predicted morosely.

“I’d say we need t’call back th’other war-bands,” Ricochet started.

“But everyone from Redtide t’Harvest saw th’mountain on fire in th’night,” Jazz finished grimly.

“Meanin’ they’ll come back on their own?” Prowl guessed, trying to follow the conversation.

“Ah,” Jazz confirmed. Prowl felt her claws tap twice against her plating before she ceased the nervous gesture and smoothed her hand over the spot in a pet. She felt profoundly worried and reluctant.

“Jazz,” Ricochet said warningly. “Y’know what we gotta do.”

“Ah,” Jazz confirmed, but didn’t elaborate.

“Jazz, so help me, if yer gonna—” Ricochet growled.

“Ain’t!”

“Then what’re ya _waiting_ fer!”

Jazz looked around, then down at Prowl, her lips pursed into a line, then looked away. “Waitin’ fer sunrise,” she said to Ricochet, in what sounded like an evasion. “Can sleep, see what’s left’a th’island’n how bad th’fishin’ is before we send out th’call. Let everyone rest a sunmark’r two.”

That was, apparently, enough to settle Ricochet for the time being. “I’ll let ’em know they can drop anchor then.”

Let who— oh. The rest of their war-band. Prowl wanted to ask what call they were putting off, but the brief moment of clear thinking was beginning to give way to fatigue. She sagged against Jazz, wondering if “collapse from exhaustion” was finally about to hit. “Did ya really try t’swim all th’way back?” she mumbled.

“Did,” Jazz said. “Rico had t’haul m’outta th’water.” She petted Prowl’s shoulders. “Let’s git y’settled on our kattumaram, yeah?” She looked over at Wheeljack.

“Yeah. I can handle th’newlin’s.”

“Thanks.” Her field and the squeeze she gave Prowl told her those thanks were for more than just keeping the newlings on the large kattumaram. Wheeljack smiled softly and simply nodded. “’Kay. Can ya hold on?”

“T’ya? Yeah.” Prowl felt around for Sundance and found her already asleep, wedged into a space between them where she was half resting on Jazz and half on Prowl. “Lemme git her first. Oh! M’tent’s over there somewhere.” She pointed vaguely.

“Git it later,” Jazz said, scooping Prowl and Sundance up into her arms. The cat barely stirred and Prowl did her best to hold onto them both. Jazz took a running start and leaped over to the smaller kattumaram, making it dip with a splash.

“Held on,” Prowl said, proud of the simple feat. In a testament to her exhaustion, Sundance was still asleep, undisturbed by the slight jostling. Or by Ricochet letting out a loud call on her tetere. Music filled the night while Jazz settled them both into the sleeping hull and pulled the blankets over them.

Prowl didn’t really protest, but, “Gonna git ash on ’em,” she said, as if the stuff wasn’t still drifting down on them.

“Too late,” Jazz sing-songed. “Sleep, beautiful.”

Too tired to do anything else, Prowl finally slept.

.

.

.

The light was strange when she woke. Prowl wasn’t sure how late in the cycle it was because when she looked up, the sky was filled with odd clouds. For a couple of nanokliks she couldn’t figure out why; then it all came rushing back. She gasped, then coughed, painfully aware of the ash in her vents.

“If that don’t clear in a sunrise’r two,” Ricochet murmured sleepily, “git a healin’ spell from one’a th’priest-mages.”

“’Kay,” Prowl said automatically, then blinked. She’d gotten used to sleeping with multiple people, but it wasn’t often she wound up cuddling with both twins. “Is it time t’git up?”

“Fer me’n Jazz.” Ricochet sat up and stretched, deliberately jostling Jazz in the process. “Y’can stay buried in yer blankets if y’want,” she added mockingly.

“Don’t want,” Prowl said with a huff that turned into another cough.

“Then it’s time t’git up.”

“Stop it. She ain’t a warrior.” Jazz shoved Ricochet off of the pile of them, then sat up and stretched herself.

“Says you,” Ricochet retorted.

“Thought I was a priest-mage?” Prowl sat up too, attempting once again to shake the ash from her plating. Some of it felt like it had solidified while she slept into a layer of actual _rock_ on her plating. Ugh.

Ricochet just scoffed, but didn’t argue.

“What you are is a _mess,”_ Sundance meowed from somewhere beneath the blankets. She sounded a little scratchy too, and when Prowl dug her out she had a cracked, semi-hardened layer of ash over her as well. “So am I, and I can’t get it off.”

“I hope you haven’t been trying too hard. The last thing you need is that stuff clogging up your systems because you ingested too much of it.”

“Didn’t. But I want it _gone.”_

“Everything okay?”

Prowl looked up and saw Jazz dealing with the ash on her plating by the simple expedient of picking it loose and scraping it off with her claws. “Kinda. She don’t like bein’ messy.”

Jazz held out her hands, offering to take her.

“Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease,” Sundance mewled, leaping into Jazz’s lap. “Get it ooooffffff.”

Obediently, Jazz scritched at the cybercat’s plating, picking off the ash-rock and making Sundance purr appreciatively.

“Thanks,” Prowl said, attempting to do the same to the mess on her own plating with her blunt fingers. It didn’t work very well, but it did let her study the ash so she could try to remove it magically. That… sort of worked. It got rid of the loose, dusty ash, but didn’t touch the hardened chunks of it. Those she either had to break up and re-magic, or find something to pick them off with.

Magicking claws onto her fingers was easier than casting prestidigitation over and over.

“I’ll help with yer back,” Jazz promised, though both of her hands were currently occupied with the purring (clean!) cybercat.

“Thank ya,” Prowl said, looking up to smile at Jazz. “I—” Her breath caught in her vents, and this time the ash _wasn’t_ responsible. Rainclouds was… unrecognizable. There was still some jungle on one side, but the nearest slopes had been turned into an expanse of pure, blackened rock. The peak was missing completely, along with a good chunk of the mountain leading up to it, and there wasn’t a bit of snow anywhere on the whole island. The surrounding waters were grey with dust and ash, instead of the bright, clear red they were supposed to be.

Jazz followed her gaze. “Ah.” There was sadness on her face, but somehow, it didn’t seem proportional compared to the devastation that had befallen her home. “Was a big one.”

Just that? That was all she had to say?

“Jazz?” Ricochet growled softly.

“Yeah. Call everyone over.” Jazz looked down at the ash-covered deck. “I’ll figure out who t’invite.”

“Invite t’what?”

“Warriors from th’other islands,” Jazz explained reluctantly while Ricochet stood to call over the other warriors. “Was hopin’ t’go a war-season without doin’ it, but… We’re gonna raid Prax.”

“What?!”

Prowl didn’t say _you can’t!,_ but Jazz winced as if she had. “Gotta,” she insisted. “Could try an’ raid other clans fer what we need, but… They’ll know we’re desperate. Make it difficult. An’ they’ll raid us back while we’re weak.”

“They’d attack us _now?”_ Prowl looked at the smouldering, ash-shrouded island, then around the rag-tag flotilla bobbing around them, and felt awfully vulnerable. They had literally been reduced to what they’d been able to carry away. Everything left behind, in the main village areas, at least, now lay beneath blackened rock. Maybe some of the fields elsewhere on the island had survived, but they couldn’t go tend them if the mountain was going to keep spitting fire. “We’re, we’re _refugees._ Y’don’t attack people like that!”

It took a klik for Jazz to work out the Praxan word, and she shook her head when she did. “Ain’t. Not until we wash up on another island lookin’ t’join. Ain’t one that can take all’a us, though. We’d have t’split up.”

“But… that’d mean Rainclouds’d be gone.” Both the island, and the clan. “Where’re we supposed t’go then?”

“Stay out on th’water ’til th’fire stops,” Jazz said matter of factly. “Villagers’ll split up a bit, make ’emselves less’a target. Fish fer fuel as much as they can.” Which, Prowl remembered someone saying the night before, wouldn’t be easy for a while with the greyed, ash-riddled waters. “Warriors’ll go out t’bring back what we can fer th’storm season. Hopefully you’ll’ve moved back onta th’island by th’time we git back.”

Prowl’s doors trembled. “Hopefully?”

“Can’t tell very far in advance when th’fires’ll stop. Leaf’n Zephyr’ll keep checkin’, but their magic can’t talk t’th’mountain’a tomorrow. If th’fires last inta th’storm season, we’ll have no choice but t’wash up on someone else’s shores, hopin’ t’be adopted.”

“Hopin’.” Meaning, there was no guarantee of that. Which followed naturally, Prowl supposed, if the clan — clans — they appealed to were suffering their own shortages. It would be their right to turn them away in their own self-interest, leaving Rainclouds to look after their own interests as best they could. Which was why… “Yer gonna go ahead’n raid th’ships now, in case it gits that bad.”

“Prowl… we don’t know where th’river’s gonna be, an’ it’ll be seasons before th’bakau starts t’grow back.” Jazz hugged her, not unsympathetic, but resolute. “Can’t plant any crops until th’harvest season, an’ nothin’ but dirt crystals’ll grow on th’flow.”

“Which,” Ricochet put in caustically, “might stay too hot fer seasons.”

Jazz glared at her twin. “How’d y’feel if we were plannin’ t’attack Hightower?” she snarled, and Ricochet backed down. “’S’what I thought.”

“Right. Cuz yer willin’ not t’attack her mate, but yer still gonna attack my people.”

“Prowl. That’s not what she said.” Sundance pawed gently at her leg until she looked down at her. “She doesn’t want to attack anyone, remember? But if they don’t…”

Again Prowl looked up at the ruined island. There was no way, faced with that sight, that she could argue it wasn’t a matter of life or death.

“Gonna be seasons before th’island’ll support us normally again. Everything we’ve saved fer th’storms’ll be used just t’git us that far, whether th’clan’s on th’sea or on th’island.”

In other words, it was going to be as bad, maybe worse, than Prowl was imagining. This wasn’t “just in case” Jazz was talking about. And Prowl understood economics well enough that she didn’t ask why they didn’t take the pearls and shells and try and trade with Praxus for the energon; they were _already_ planning on doing that, during the harvest season, to support the clan through the next war season.

“Gittin’ th’other clans t’come,” Jazz went on, quietly but mercilessly, “weakens ’em while we’re gone. They won’t be attackin’ us, an’ anyone out beyond’ll attack ’em instead’a us. Gives us a buffer. Then, when we come back, they’ll be bigger targets than us, cuz they have more t’take.”

There was a ruthless logic in that. Still… “Is there really no other way?” she asked one last time without hope.

Jazz hesitated, but Ricochet growled at her, and she bowed her head. “Really ain’t.”

So that was it. Not only was she not going to be able to stop the raids, there were going to be more than usual for a second vorn in a row.

“It’s not your fault,” Sundance meowed sadly. “The king couldn’t possibly expect you to have done something about… _that.”_

Prowl let out a short burst of slightly hysterical laughter. “No. I’m no match for a goddess.” Bluestreak would have trouble even believing her when she tried to explain what had happened. The idea of something the size of a mountain exploding in fire, blowing itself up and covering everything around it as far as the optic could see with ash and rock — _liquid_ rock, she finally made the connection; the same that she’d walked on and harvested dirt crystals from — would sound absolutely insane to the king and his advisors.

Jazz didn’t say she was sorry, but she clearly was. She held her comfortingly while the clan’s warriors gathered. Not just the twins’ war-band, but all of Rainclouds’ warriors, recently returned to the floating village. There were only a few war-leaders who led raids on Praxus, Prowl remembered one of the elders on Harvest saying. They were all trusting Jazz to do this, to save their clan.

The rattling of her vents as she tried to steady herself reminded Prowl that she needed to finish dealing with the ash on her plating before her spell ended. “Help me?” she asked Jazz.

“Will,” Jazz promised, and started picking at the grey rock.

By the time they were done, everyone was ready for the meeting to begin. Jazz kissed her on the helm and let her go so that she could stand and address the warriors.

Prowl was passingly familiar with how the military was run in Praxus. A commander might have opened up a meeting with his lieutenants with a summary of the situation. This grim gathering didn’t need any speeches though, not with the specter of their burned and blackened home still occasionally spewing fire and smoke in the distance. Instead Jazz got down to business, assigning islands for each boat to sail by, and which warriors to call for on their horns when they got within sight range of the villages.

So that was it. The raids on Praxan ships were orchestrated and led by one clan, but the raiders themselves came from multiple clans, each paid with a share of the take for bringing their weapons to the group. Once again reputation and goodwill came into the politics, and everyone bandied about which friendships they could lean on and who would be most likely to answer whom if they came calling. There was a lot to keep track of, but Jazz clearly knew everything she needed and had more than enough charisma to satisfy everyone that she was qualified to be in charge.

There was a sense of urgency about the discussions. Everyone agreed it was paramount they get the message out that they were gathering a mass of warriors for a raid on Praxus before anyone got the bright idea to launch a raid against Rainclouds. That knowledge alone would give potential raiders pause, even before any not-actually-reinforcements had a chance to arrive.

When the brief issuing of orders was complete, the warriors immediately scattered to the ash-laden winds. Prowl watched them go, sailing beyond the activity at the outer edges of their floating village where people were cleaning and organizing their fishing equipment to be ready to go as soon as the water was clear enough.

“What do we do when they all git back?”

“They’ll come back with enough’a their supplies t’make th’trip,” Jazz said quietly. “Might squabble a bit, but I’ve led good raids on Prax before.”

Prowl nodded. She didn’t like anything about the whole business, but she trusted Jazz knew it and how to handle it well. “I know there’s fightin’, and that means people die,” she said, thinking now of the people who would die on _both_ sides, “but y’don’t have’ta kill everyone, do ya? If th’point’s just t’take stuff?” Ricochet was going to love the very idea, but she had to ask. “’S it possible t’leave ’em just enough fuel t’sail home?”

Jazz looked away, refusing to promise anything. Ricochet, as expected, laughed out loud. “Yer kiddin’, right? Even if we got _our_ warriors t’agree t’somethin’ that wasteful, th’others’d never listen! Raids’re hard ’nough already without complicatin’ ’em tryin’ t’keep track’a who’s takin’ what in th’moment.”

“Y’can still tell ’em not t’just cut everyone down or throw ’em overboard t’die horribly,” Prowl argued. “An’ maybe in th’future there can be, I dunno, an emergency supply on th’ships fer ’em t’git home if they git raided that ya tell everyone t’leave alone.”

“Both’re fer th’future,” Jazz said with heavy finality before Ricochet could argue back.

“I ain’t fergetting about it,” Prowl insisted. Even if Jazz and Ricochet considered the topic dropped for now, with them pressed for time to save Rainclouds, she wasn’t going to forget about it. She might not be able to do anything to stop the raids in the face of things like Keahi’s destruction, but she could work on them being less _lethal._

“Should ferget about it,” Ricochet said. “’S called war fer a reason, _princess.”_

“Don’t use my title like that,” Prowl snapped. “Carin’ about my people ain’t stupid.”

“Ain’t. But out here, _we’re_ yer people first, an’ _that,”_ she pointed at what was left of the island, “will kill us all if we don’t do absolutely everythin’ we can. Who even heard’a belongin’ t’two—”

“Shut up, Rico,” Jazz growled. “Yer tryin’ t’drive on water.”

“Che. Whatever,” Ricochet growled back, and this time leapt away from their kattumaram to a neighboring vessel, and from it to another farther away.

“Real mature,” Sundance remarked.

“It kind of is,” Prowl said. “If you can’t stop fighting, there’s nothing wrong with walking,” or jumping, “away to cool down.”

“Yer clean as yer gonna git,” Jazz said softly, then pulled Prowl into a hug. “Love ya so much, beautiful.”

“Love ya too,” Prowl said, leaning into the hug. “Ain’t tryin’ ta cause trouble. Can see it can’t be helped, but I can’t help it bein’ hard t’accept.”

“Yeah…”

“Ain’t yer fault. Ain’t anyone’s fault.” Ironically, that fact was a source of both comfort and frustration. It meant there was nothing she could do, but it also meant there was nothing she could do!

Jazz kissed Prowl’s chevron. “We ain’t gonna raid th’city,” she said, like she thought it was a consolation. “Imma ship specialist’n everyone knows it.”

“That’s… great.” Not raiding the city was great. It meant no civilians would be attacked, only sailors and soldiers who knew pirates were a possibility. Prowl didn’t really feel much better about that. “I won’t kill any of ’em.”

“’Course not. Y’ain’t comin’,” Jazz said with a pet. “Yer a priest-mage. Defend th’village. Supervise th’newlin’s.”

“What?” Prowl looked up at her mate, confused. Yes, she was a priest-mage, and she liked looking after the newlings. She’d even defended the village, when there _was_ one. But it hadn’t even occurred to her to stay when Jazz left this time. “Whaddaya mean I ain’t comin’?”

“Wouldn’t ever ask ya t’raid Prax,” Jazz almost whispered. “Ain’t fair. But a priest-mage stays with th’village.”

“I thought bein’ a priest-mage meant y’did magic.”

“All’a us have magic.”

“I meant—” What did she mean? Of course they all had magic. Jazz and Ricochet had the magic of being possessed by their spirits to fight, and Wheeljack had more than just alchemy to his name. “…a certain kinda magic?” she finished uncertainly. Polyhexian was an astonishingly vague language when it came to magic. Wheeljack’s wera jars were the same as Leaf’s affinity for plants to them, where to _Prowl_ there was a clear difference. Not that Praxan had more than a few words to describe that difference either; it was something she knew without knowing how to explain it. Was this a translation error? “Like havin’ a familiar?”

“Sure.” Jazz scritched Sundance, who blinked up at her placidly. “Almost everyone with visible spirits’re priest-mages. But yer also good with talkin’ t’people, an’ yer not proud’a fightin’, an’ I wouldn’t ever ask ya t’raid Prax,” she repeated, her smile turning a tad melancholy. “An’ priest-mages stay while th’warriors’re raidin’.”

“Ain’t proud’a fightin’, but ain’t afraid of it either,” Prowl said, holding her head high. Jazz had shown her this part of herself, even if hadn’t settled fully in her processor. She could fight. She wasn’t afraid. “It means a lot t’me that ya won’t ask me t’do it. Really. But yer not askin’; I am. I wanna be there.”

“Warriors die. An’ they kill. Ain’t any way around that, beautiful.”

“Warriors die an’ I’ll take that risk.” The king and court would have a fit if they knew about it, but Prowl didn’t care. Nowhere was without risk in Polyhex. _Nowhere._ If all she could do was choose which dangers she faced then she would, and base that decision on where she felt she could make the biggest difference. “An’ if that means I have’ta kill too, I won’t shy from it when I absolutely have to. ’S called war fer a reason,” she repeated Ricochet’s words, “but war don’t mean everyone _has_ t’die. Y’can take what ya need without sacrificin’ everyone t’Carcharhinidae, an’ if I’m there, _I_ can be th’one t’worry about remindin’ people.”

“Ain’t that easy,” Jazz warned, but she left it at that. “Y’sure y’wanna be a warrior?” She nuzzled Prowl’s shoulder. “Thought y’would be, when I saw ya, but… priest-mage’s a good life.”

“Is. Now that I know what’s involved, I can honestly say I enjoyed it. Ain’t a good fit though; fer all it’s a good life, it ain’t my life.” She still wasn’t completely sure a warrior’s was either, but all the things that were important to Praxus and to her personally had to do with them. The path she needed to walk was with them. “Stayin’ behind while others take action ain’t my style.”

“’Kay.” Jazz nudged her. “Thirteen warriors in m’band,” she cooed excitedly, then preened. “As big as th’war-bands’a legend.”

“Legend? Really?” _Thirteen_ was a legendarily large war-band? _Primus._

“Come on.” Jazz stroked down Prowl’s spine. “Gotta make sure y’can fight on a kattumaram’n a Prax ship.”

“Y’mean there’s more to it than climbin’ th’mast’n lobbin’ flash-bangs?” Prowl teased. She remembered Jazz’s first dinner in the court of Praxus, where the former ambassador to Kaon had questioned her about the training of a Polyhexian warrior. There had been things Jazz wasn’t allowed to talk about then. It looked like she was about to find out what those things were now firsthand.

Jazz chuckled. “Can do that. Somma th’Prax sailors can climb.” Her tone of voice suggested she thought they weren’t very good at it, but then neither was Prowl. Not _yet._

“What else’m I gonna need t’be able t’do?” she asked, mentally mapping out which spells she’d want. Alter self to give herself claws and better darkvision, for one. Raids didn’t always happen at night — the most frequently reported times were around dawn and dusk, actually — but sometimes they occurred in complete darkness.

“Run’n fight.” Jazz took a running leap and landed on the deck of Wheeljack’s larger kattumaram. She picked up the bundle of Prowl’s things and leaped back. “Can’t git ya armor this quick, but…” She put the bundle in its place on their — _their!_ — kattumaram. “Gonna need t’practice swimmin’ with yer weapon too.”

Prowl reached for the knots of her sarong first. “Won’t be wearin’ these, yeah?”

“Won’t,” Jazz confirmed. She opened the bundle carefully and pulled out the sword Prowl had stolen from Stepper, her blow gun, and her harpoons. “An’ warriors wear ’em less’n others usually, even when we’re not raidin’.”

“I’d noticed.” Prowl finished untying and folding up her sarong, and her hikurere joined it, followed by a quick assessment of her jewelry. Most of it fit close and wouldn’t interfere with movement. The ketzal feather trailing from her arm band was the one that had the most room to swing freely, but she’d gotten used to it and keeping it out of the way. A good thing, since she was sure that piece wasn’t one she should be removing. Ember was a warrior-mage, and he wore ketzal feathers. Some pieces though… Delicately she took off the chevron ornament and examined it. It was fragile, especially by island standards. She’d honestly forgotten it wasn’t meant for everyday wear like most Polyhexian ornaments. She definitely couldn’t wear it in a fight.

“Anything else I should take off?” she asked Jazz, wrapping the ornament carefully to put away.

“Naw. Yer good. Which’a these y’want?” Jazz waved at the weapons she’d pulled out. “Warriors don’t ever go without their weapons, ’cept durin’ th’harvest season.”

“I remember.” Jazz had refused to be without hers even in the palace!

The blow gun was easy enough to add to the side of her spellbag. The sword and the harpoons were more cumbersome, especially with her doorwings, and Prowl was a little worried once she’d finally wrangled them all around into a comfortable arrangement that they’d make it harder to swim. “Ain’t gonna be good with these anytime soon,” she warned Jazz. “Th’blow gun I’m okay with, but y’shoulda seen my recent attempts t’harpoon fish.”

Jazz smiled. “Anythin’ y’think yer comfortable with?”

“Besides magic? I’m comfortable with that.” Oops. She probably should have checked sooner. “Are you comfortable with this?” she meowed.

Sundance tilted her head, canting her audial flaps. “You think I didn’t know what we are?” she meowed back. “You just better not make me stay on the little boat!”

“As long as you make sure you don’t get lost on the big boat.” Prowl crossed her arms. “And anyway it’s not my fault I didn’t know! The language is so confusing!”

The cat just snickered.

Jazz waited for the meowed conversation to die down, then continued, offering to scritch Sundance while she talked. “Mostly magic’s fine. But y’need a weapon too.”

“Have weapons.” Prowl rattled the sword and harpoons on her back with a cheeky grin. “Unless yer talkin’ ’bout somethin’ I can actually land a hit with, in which case I think maybe I’m qualified t’throw rocks or whack things with a stick.” Though even there, Crux had the better aim with the rocks. She had trained with a quarterstaff and dagger in Praxus, between Jazz kidnapping her and her kidnapping Jazz, but a staff would be cumbersome while climbing, running, and swimming. She could use her knives as daggers in a pinch, since Jazz hadn’t told her to remove those, but those weren’t _weapons_ to Polyhexians.

“Stick’ll work. Gotta be able t’hit people with it.” Jazz moved behind her and unhooked one of the harpoons from her back. She removed the tip and the rope, tucking them away, then handed the shaft back to Prowl with a smile. Prowl hefted the makeshift club, testing the balance. It would do.

“Finally figured out y’took a warrior?” Ricochet snarked from the next boat over. She jumped, but landed just short of the kattumaram. That didn’t seem to bother her and she hauled herself up onto the deck without missing a beat.

“Shut up,” Jazz said without bite. “She was th’one had ta figure it out.”

“Just means yer both idiots.” Ricochet’s gaze ran over Prowl, taking her in critically. “Come on. Let’s see ya git t’th’other side’a th’fleet’n back.”

“Wh— right now?”

“Y’sayin’ y’can’t?” Ricochet challenged.

“No.” Prowl glared at her for a moment, then set off for the end of the deck. “Watch me.”

“Don’t ferget yer spirit,” the darker twin heckled.

“That means I’m going to get _wet,”_ Sundance whined.

“Weren’t you just saying you didn’t want to stay on the small boat?” Prowl meowed, then took a running leap to the large kattumaram like Jazz had done. It was sort of like jumping between the crystal trees back on Harvest, though she knew the smaller boats would rock more than the branches had when she landed on them. “Come on!”

Grumbling to herself, the shipcat ran and leaped after her.

Prowl saw the twins exchange a look, then Ricochet followed. “Yer callin’ that a _jump?_ Again!”

And so it went, on and on for what felt like joors. Prowl was exhausted by the time Ricochet decided she could finally have a break, but she couldn’t sleep through the first arrivals from the other clans. It was a tense standoff, negotiated by tetere before the foreign warriors were allowed close, but Prowl watched with tense doors while Stepper maneuvered his boat close, anchored it, and tethered it to the twins’.

Despite their harvest season rivalry over the Tooth Race, Jazz and Stepper greeted each other like friends. “Didn’t wait fer yer warrior’s invite,” he said, hugging first Jazz, then Ricochet. “Saw th’fire’n gathered m’warriors t’come.”

Because he’d known what it would mean: the inevitability of raiding Praxan ships. From where she was resting, Prowl saw Stepper look around. For her? She listened as they continued to talk, gathering her strength to get back to her feet.

“Was wonderin’ how ya made such good time,” Ricochet said.

“Why waste time? I knew th’call’d be comin’.” Stepper clapped Jazz’s shoulder. “Prax mate’r no.”

Jazz swatted his arm, but didn’t push him away. “M’ _mate_ ain’t th’problem an’ y’know it.” Her expression softened. “’M’glad y’came.”

“Hey, what’re neighbors for? ’Sides, I gotta see ya back on yer feet so we can keep raidin’ ya,” Stepper laughed. “So. How’re ya plannin’ on playin’ this one? Same’s last war season?” Prowl recognized the stubborn line of Jazz’s mouth. So did Stepper. He shook his head. “That’s gonna _bite_ ya one’a these sunrises.”

“Can still charm a zambi with th’best’a ’em,” Jazz retorted.

“Long as y’can charm th’other raid leaders too.” He gave her one more quick hug. “Y’hold things together, me’n mine’ll fight with ya, least ’til th’gods give us reason not ta.” This time he didn’t wait for a response, and jumped back to his kattumaram. “C’mon,” he called to his warriors. “Let’s git this stuff unloaded!”

They’d brought food! Not just enough for themselves, but some for Rainclouds as well. Prowl remembered Jazz’s obsession with bringing food to every meal to prove she was a good provider while in Praxus. It had been slightly exasperating then, but now, watching Stepper’s war-band unload crates of miso and chuno and the carcasses of hunted mechanimals onto Rainclouds’ boats, she was grateful for it.

One of those crates, she was surprised to find, was a gift Stepper gave directly to Leaf and Zephyr on behalf of their own plant-focused priest-mages. It was filled to the brim with seed crystals: not crystals to replant the fields, but all of the crystal plants that made up the jungle, from the half-sprouted seed crystals of the bakau, to mounds of the feather light seeds of the ohe, to a tiny glass perfume bottle that had been repurposed to hold a pair of gympie seeds, and everything in between.

“These’re a welcome sight,” Leaf said, smiling at the contents. “Tell yer priest-mages we’re grateful.”

“Will,” Stepper said. “When we go back with our spoils, we’ll pass on yer gratitude.”

“That t’help th’island recover?” Prowl asked.

“It’ll be slow,” Leaf acknowledged, making sure the seeds were all repacked perfectly before she sealed the crate again. “Th’bakau’ll have t’wait until th’river settles, an’ we’ll have t’break up pockets’a th’flow t’git others started, but with work, th’jungle’ll recover in m’lifetime, ’stead’a stayin’ barren until only th’stars remember us.”

Shadows danced over Leaf’s frame as Prowl’s optics flared in surprise. “It can take _that_ long?!”

“Ain’t a lot that’ll grow on th’flow,” Leaf said. Her voice had a distant, distracted quality to it. “Th’remaining jungle’ll spread outwards slowly. T’cover th’entire island again? Yeah. Could take that long. These’ll go t’makin’ new pockets’a jungle on th’flow, an’ with our help th’jungle’ll spread outwards from there too.”

It sounded like an enormous undertaking. Prowl could tell it was important to Leaf, to Zephyr, and to everyone else present, but she felt like she was missing part of the reason. Now didn’t seem to be the best time to ask though.

“Hey! When did ya pick up th’weapons?”

Prowl turned and grinned tiredly at Stepper. “T’day.”

He stalked around her, examining her from every angle. Sundance twined around her ankles and hissed at him, and he laughed. “Look good on ya.” He looked at Jazz and showed off his teeth, and she responded with a rude gesture. He chuckled and turned back to Prowl. “Question is: can ya use ’em?”

“Can.” Incredibly badly in the case of the sword she’d stolen from him, but he hadn’t specified that particular weapon. “An’ I’m only gonna get better.”

“Believe it when I see it,” Stepper scoffed, but it sounded good-natured. “She done th’Karakia yet?” he asked Jazz.

“Ain’t been time.”

“An’ _I’ll_ be th’kiyai,” Ricochet put in stubbornly. Stepper looked over at her, plating flaring in surprise. “I’m Jazz’s twin. ’Er equal. She don’t need t’do that to ’er mate.”

Uh oh. That didn’t sound good. “What’s ’e talkin’ about?”

“’S’a ritual,” Jazz said shortly, inserting herself back into the conversation with Stepper. “An’ there ain’t gonna be any dog-sharks ’ere ’til th’ashes settle. We’ll be on th’raid before then. It’s gonna have t’wait ’til we’re back.”

A ritual? If she was supposed to have done it already, then it was probably an initiation of sorts. Like the trials Arcee had faced to become a paladin, only worse. Because _sharks._

Stepper looked skeptical. “Dog-sharks’re more common on th’edge’a th’Teeth anyway. Rainclouds’s close, but not _that_ close. What about that wreck? ’S’perfect.”

“Wreck’s moved,” Jazz snapped, agitated; Ricochet reached over to comfort her. “Storms shoved it closer t’th’island. Dog-shark hunt out there could take a season.”

They were talking around something again, just like when they’d avoided mentioning the raids until they absolutely had to. If this was Jazz being protective, Prowl didn’t want it. “Just tell me what’s involved, would ya? Or is it some kinda secret?”

Jazz looked pained; Ricochet stroked down her back. “I’ll tell ’er.” Her yellow visor raked over Prowl. “Come on. Don’t need th’newlin’s or priest-mages listenin’ in.”

“Aww.” Crux pouted and Wheeljack made a rude gesture from where he was tinkering with one of his alchemical spells, which Ricochet returned before leaping to their kattumaram and starting the process of unhooking it from the others nearby. Prowl petted Jazz’s shoulder and gave Crux a quick hug, then jumped after Ricochet.

“Ain’t exactly pleasant, is it?” she said softly as they drifted free.

“Ain’t,” Ricochet admitted frankly. “But it ain’t th’ritual’s got Jazz puffed up like a spiny fugu; ’s’th’hunt beforehand. Y’gotta go find a dog-shark by yerself. Dog-sharks’re ’bout,” she held her hands out, wider than her shoulders. A small sharkticon, Prowl knew, but more than big enough to take off a hand. “They’re grey’r silver, with black spots along th’side. Aggressive, usually found in swarms’n they have two poison spines on their backs, just in front’a their fins. Can’t show ya one,” Ricochet said before she could ask. “’S’part’a th’test: t’find one without knowin’ more ’bout what yer lookin’ fer. Come back with th’wrong one, an’ it says y’don’t have Carcharhinidae’s favor.”

“Only git th’one try, huh?” Lovely. “What happens if I don’t succeed?”

“Can try again, with another clan,” Ricochet said. “Can try again when a warrior in yer own clan dies too, if y’can convince a war-leader t’take ya.”

“Can’t imagine Jazz not bein’ willin’ t’ gimme a second try,” Prowl said, but she didn’t want to trade on that advantage. “Ain’t th’point though, is it? ’S a bad thing not t’have th’favor’a th’god, an’ Jazz lettin’ me keep tryin’ ’til I get it won’t go well with the others.”

“Won’t,” Ricochet confirmed, leaning back against the mast. “An’ y’git no help on th’hunt. Y’use one’a th’clan’s canoes, but no food. Have’ta hunt all on yer own. Gotta git inta th’water with ’em too. Wouldn’t occur t’most new warriors t’use a net,” Ricochet said ruefully, “but yer already old’n clever, ’stead’a young’n eager, so it’s gotta be said: gotta use yer harpoon t’snag th’dog-shark.”

“I have t’go lookin’ fer a dangerous fish on m’own’n, without knowin’ fer sure what it even is, an’ _harpoon_ it?” Without dying from any number of things in the process. How was she supposed to do that? She was terrible at harpooning harmless sunfish! “Think I’m gettin’ why Jazz ain’t happy ’bout this.”

“Ain’t supposed t’be easy,” Ricochet said ruthlessly. “Life’a a warrior’s t’die. An’ if y’plan on protestin’ Prax bein’ thrown t’Carcharhinidae’s kin t’eat, y’better show y’got th’god’s favor or yer gonna wish it was th’sharks that tore ya apart. That’d,” she added with a viciously sarcastic smile that flashed her fangs, “mean ’e likes ya.”

“Think I’d rather live than have ’im like me that much,” Prowl quipped, which made Ricochet flash her fangs in amusement. Inside she was reeling. Praxus wasn’t a religious state. She wasn’t in the habit of considering faith as a primary motivation, or of including the gods in the list of people she needed on her side in order to effect change. “Means a lot here though, doesn’t it? Whether th’gods like ya.”

“‘Here’?” Ricochet repeated, looking at her like she was crazy. “Don’t matter where y’are. Th’gods’re everywhere.”

“I meant, it matters t’people. What th’gods think’a ya’s important in Polyhex.”

“If th’winds don’t like ya, y’can’t sail,” Ricochet said matter of factly. “If Keahi’s Hounds like ya too much, y’set fires where y’don’t want ’em. Thundercallers’re great warriors, but ain’t such great mountain speakers. An’ if Moana don’t like ya, yer just a star waitin’ t’git sent t’th’sky. Can’t be a warrior without Carcharhinidae’s favor. ’E’s th’god’a war’n a’ warriors.”

It was so real to her. Prowl didn’t share her belief, but that didn’t matter when everyone else did. Stepper wouldn’t be the only one questioning her if she didn’t take the appropriate steps to appease the gods, the same way some warriors were questioning Jazz’s conduct. Something about how she was leading her raids was making them think she was risking the god’s favor, and that had many of them reluctant to sail with her. If Prowl didn’t succeed at this test the first time out, it would undercut everything she tried to do afterward in the same way.

No pressure.

“Am a warrior,” Prowl declared, determined. “I’ll get ’is favor.”

Proving she wasn’t as totally sparkless as she sometimes acted, Ricochet patted Prowl’s knee encouragingly. “Will. Once y’got yer dog-shark,” she continued describing the ritual, “y’gotta come back with it. Can’t eat anythin’ but its fuel ’til after th’ritual’s complete. So if y’had t’go far, might wanna catch a big one.”

“Can’t eat anythin’ but its fuel meanin’, no catchin’ anything else at all?”

“Right.”

“…can I eat bits’a its frame?”

Ricochet burst out laughing, falling over onto the deck to shake.

“What? ’S a fair question!” She almost couldn’t believe she’d asked it, but the answer mattered. Her lack of skill with a harpoon meant things had a tendency to lose a lot of fuel from being stabbed ineffectively multiple times, and if that was the only fuel she was allowed to consume, she was really going to have to work on her aim!

“Yeah,” Ricochet managed, still chortling. “Y’can eat th’frame. Just stay away from th’spines on its back. Don’t wanna eat those.”

“’Kay.” Prowl flicked her doors to settle her plating in the face of Ricochet’s continued laughter. “So I’m gonna have’ta do this after th’raids.”

“Will.” Ricochet sobered up, and pushed herself back to sitting. “Keahi’s little treasure hunt means no one’ll question us takin’ a new warrior who ain’t been tested yet t’raid Prax, but y’ain’t part’a th’war-band until y’got Carcharhinidae’s favor’n yer marked as a warrior. Can’t,” she admitted, “stop ya from actin’ like a warrior, long as y’bring fuel back fer th’clan, but it’d make Jazz’s life difficult.”

“She did all th’things fer me. I’ll do all th’things fer ’er,” Prowl declared. “Somehow.”

Ricochet flashed her teeth again. “Know y’will. Y’two’re _pathetic.”_

“Hey!” The exclamation was out of her mouth before she could stop it, and before she could stop her feet she was walking up to Ricochet and shoving her.

Laughing again, Ricochet rolled into a crouch. Then, with a flash of fangs that told Prowl she was maybe in just a little bit of trouble, she pounced, bodychecking them both into the sea.

“Eep!” Prowl forced herself not to gasp as she hit the water, quickly surfacing with a splutter. Ricochet was nowhere in sight. “Get back ’ere!” She saw a ripple in the murky water and pounced on it without thinking.

“Ack!” Ricochet sputtered, then she laughed, and they flipped in the water. She started to eel away, but Prowl growled and dug her fingers into the dark plating; if Rico got away from her, she’d never find her again!

They wrestled in the water, churning up the ash near the surface. It got in Prowl’s optics, blinding her, but as long as she kept her grip on Ricochet it didn’t matter. “Ain’t pathetic!” she said, surprising herself when she actually managed to dunk Ricochet again. There was no way she was fighting back with even a fraction of her full ability, which meant… she was playing? Huh. The conclusion settled in her processor easily, like something she’d already known. Which was about the time she realized it hadn’t occurred to her to cast any magic to fight Ricochet off, something she _knew_ she wouldn’t hesitate to do if she felt genuinely threatened.

Ironically relaxing, Prowl continued their struggle. It was like playing with the newlings or Jazz, only slightly rougher. There was an edge of practice-fighting about it, but no sense of danger, and between the growls and the splashes she could hear Ricochet laughing — not at her, but with her.

She did almost panic when she pushed herself away from the fight — Ricochet let her go, as if Prowl needed more proof by that point she was only playing — and saw the kattumaram had drifted away while they were occupied. Then she spotted a Jazz-shaped blur crouched on its deck. Prowl shook the ash-water from her face so she could see better. Jazz was smiling fondly while she watched them.

Ricochet ambushed her and pushed her under the water once more, then started swimming to the boat. Prowl’s retaliatory swipe missed her feet, and she’d gotten herself all the way back on the deck beside her twin by the time Prowl reached the nearer hull.

If nothing else, Ricochet’s exhausting obstacle course earlier had given Prowl lots of practice pulling herself up onto a boat when she fell into the water.

“Y’two have fun?” Jazz laughed while Prowl laid herself out on the deck to drip. The ash clouds rising from the mountain blocked out some of the sun’s heat along with its light, but the kattumaram was still pretty warm. Field buzzing in amusement, Jazz laid down next to her, cuddling.

“Did,” Prowl said, cuddling back. “I’ll do th’Karakia thing.”

“Y’will.” Jazz petted her gently, and if there was a waver of worry in her voice, it didn’t undermine the confidence in her field. “Know y’can. Just also know yer not quite ready.”

“Got time t’git ready.” Not a lot, but some. “Lotta what I need t’work on fer th’raid’s th’same’s what I’ll need t’go huntin’.”

“Ain’t a coincidence, that,” Jazz admitted.

“Hmm. Cuz it’s s’posed t’be th’other way around’n th’hunt proves I’m ready t’raid?”

“Yeah.”

“Just _frag’n_ stop bein’ so serious already,” Ricochet called from where she was also sprawled out on the deck, soaking up warmth.

“Wh— with ya right there?”

“’S’not like I care.” Ricochet very pointedly rolled over so her back was to them. “’Less yer lookin’ fer me t’join in. Then th’answer’s no, cuz me’n Jazz don’t do that slag with each other.”

“Wasn’t lookin’ fer a third,” Prowl said primly, then snuggled closer to Jazz. “I just want ya.”

Jazz kissed her chevron, then cheek, then neck. “Want ya too.”

The kisses felt good, but want didn’t make her forget about Ricochet still right there beside them. Problem was, there was nowhere to go. “Dunno if I can,” Prowl whispered, embarrassed.

“’Kay.” Jazz dropped a kiss on her collar strut. “Can I keep kissin’ ya?”

“Yeah.” Prowl’s fingers curled on Jazz’s arm. “Please.”

Purring in pleasure, the next kiss landed rather predictably on Prowl’s chest seam, over the glowing blue stripe of wake-light paint, but keeping her promise, Jazz didn’t push for more. She just moved on to kissing Prowl’s shoulder, stroking her plating as she went. Now it was Prowl’s turn to purr, and even if the touches only flirted with being erotic, it satisfied the need to be _close_ that Prowl felt in her spark.

The gentle cuddling moved to the sleeping hull when Prowl finished drying off and warming up (something Jazz was as responsible for as the muted sun). It put them farther away from Ricochet, but Prowl didn’t escalate things. She just hugged and petted Jazz as her beloved continued to kiss her.

.

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Prowl wasn’t quite as surprised to wake cuddling with Ricochet this time. Where else was she going to recharge? There was only one sleeping hull. She tried to remember the last time she’d actually slept alone for more than one or two nights at a time and between Jazz, Crux, the other newlings, and occasional cuddles with Ricochet, Chromia or Wheeljack came up with… the initial journey to Polyhex with Jazz, when it had been just the two of them on the kattumaram, and Jazz had barely allowed herself to sleep at all.

What was almost more surprising was how the complete lack of anything resembling personal space didn’t really bother her anymore. Except when it came to interfacing — she wasn’t at the point she could comfortably bare her spark or lose herself in an overload with an audience — she didn’t even flinch at people coming up to her, touching her, or even going so far as to physically move her without bothering with permission or explanation. Wheeljack had tackled her out of the way of a bad jar more than once, and Crux couldn’t seem to decide which she liked more: grabbing Prowl in a hug that lifted her off the ground, or jumping her and clinging like the keong she called her.

It was going to be very strange to go back to Praxus and have everyone maintain a careful arm’s length of distance from her at all times.

Then again, her first trip back to Praxus was going to be as a raider, which came with a whole different set of concerns. There was little chance she wouldn’t be identified; everyone was going to be so mad at her! But she couldn’t just leave Rainclouds — her _clan_ — to die, and if she was going to have any chance of saving the lives of any soldiers or sailors, she _had_ to be there.

“Yeesh. Y’really do think loud when ya get goin’, don’cha?”

“Do not,” Prowl said while making a conscious effort to pull her field back.

“Do too,” Sundance meowed, and Ricochet laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Jazz asked sleepily, not even bothering to online her visor as she rolled to better wrap herself around Prowl.

“Yer mate,” Ricochet said, “pretendin’ like she wasn’t tryin’ t’give all’a us a headache with ’er worryin’.”

“Cuz I wasn’t,” Prowl said, then grinned cheekily. “Tryin’ to, anyway. Can’t help thinkin’ though, with what’s comin’.”

She half expected Ricochet to scoff, but she just climbed out of the pile with a snort.

“I know,” Jazz said, petting her gently. There was a hint of her concern in her field before she shoved it aside and kissed Prowl with _confidence/love._ “Should git up. Got a lot y’need t’do still.”

“An’ not a lotta time t’do it,” Ricochet said, scanning the water. “Ain’t that many we’re waitin’ on now.” She looked down at Prowl with a wicked flash of teeth. “Means more runnin’.”

“Food first,” Jazz countered. “Gotta make an effort t’catch somethin’ before takin’ anythin’ from th’barrels.”

“Ah. Guess yer startin’ with harpoon practice instead then.” Ricochet’s grin didn’t get any nicer. “Git to it, _prin—”_

“Prowl,” Prowl cut her off with a glare. “’M a warrior an’ y’know my name. Use it.”

“Yeah? Make me.”

“Food first,” Jazz reminded them, hauling up the anchor. “Look fer—”

“Let ’er figure out where t’go,” Ricochet interrupted.

“She doesn’t know—”

“So? She’s gotta figure it anywa—”

“Seabirds,” Prowl interrupted with a bit of a snap. Sure, she knew it was a beginner’s tip, but she did know that much from her fishing trips while on Harvest. She folded her arms across her chest, daring the darker twin to contradict her. “They gather ’round schools’a fish, an’ if we can’t catch any fish, th’ birds ’emselves’ll make good eatin’.”

Jazz looked smug. Ricochet just looked irritated.

“’S’th’best tip she could have fer fishin’ outside th’Teeth,” Jazz said, sounding even more smug than she looked.

“She’ll figure out you’re not helpless eventually,” Sundance meowed. “And if she doesn’t…”

The dangling threat succeeded in lifting Prowl’s mood. “No biting,” she giggled. “Come on. Let’s see if we can catch something. I’m sorry there aren’t any glitchmice out here on the water.”

“Shows what _you_ know.” Sundance’s tail swished eagerly. “There’s plenty, and everyone praises me when I catch one!”

Really? Interesting. Maybe there was a reason domestic cybercats were called “shipcats” instead of just “cats”.

“So where’re we goin’?” Ricochet heckled, recovering her composure. “Gittin’ hungry ’ere.”

When Jazz didn’t answer, Prowl realized they were waiting on her. She climbed up out of the sleeping hull onto the deck, scanning the horizon for birds. There weren’t many. Not with ash still rising steadily — and occasionally in larger bursts — from the mountain. “There,” she said, pointing to a shadow she thought might be birds in the distance.

Jazz and Ricochet worked together and the kattumaram spun around as the grimy sail opened and filled.

It wasn’t, at first, encouraging. The ash floating on the surface created a dull grey wake that made Prowl long for the bright red of healthy water. Where the ash had sunk, it had settled into the cracks and crevices of the kohuke and stuck to the rubber weeds, dulling them as well. It had obviously driven off the fish, leaving the usually vibrant reef look grey, dead, and empty. No wonder Polyhexians liked colored everything.

The shadow did prove to be birds, though, feeding on a school of long, dark fishes with dangerous looking mouths and teeth, so at least there was that. Determined, Prowl pulled one of her harpoons free, holding the steelbone shaft in one hand and wrapping the end of the rope attached to it around the other. She was _going_ to catch something!

Knowing that the water distorted and deflected her view, she tried to pick a target close to the surface. Doing her best to cast it straight, she launched the harpoon.

_Splash!_

Miss.

Prowl did _not_ stomp her foot in frustration. This was _hard!_ But the school wouldn’t last forever, especially with the birds harrying it, so she pulled the rope and retrieved her weapon. It was slippery now, but the grooves she’d thought were only decorative helped her grip despite that.

Okay. Time to try again. She picked her target and threw.

Another miss.

“Almost,” Jazz praised, while Ricochet gave her twin a disgusted look.

Once more…

There! On her next cast she actually managed to catch something! Practically vibrating, Prowl hauled the long-fish to the surface and onto the boat. Jazz speared it through the head and it went still.

“Want m’t’git another?” Prowl said cockily, nowhere near as confident as she sounded.

“Sure.” Ricochet’s smirk was wicked, and said she knew just how much Prowl was bluffing.

Four failures later saw Prowl’s arms hurting but she was hauling a second fish onto the kattumaram’s deck proudly.

“Maybe a truestrike spell if you need to do this in combat,” Sundance meowed.

Truestrike against a fish? She’d learned the spell to help her in combat against sentient opponents, but there was no reason it wouldn’t work just as well to hunt, really. The spell would guarantee her aim no matter what she was aiming at, since it acted on whatever weapon she cast it on.

“What’cha waitin’ fer?” Ricochet interrupted her musings. “There’s three’a us.”

“Catch yer own,” Prowl retorted, making the obnoxious islander laugh. But she turned back to the dissipating school. Just needed to catch one more.

She caught one on her second try _without_ falling back on magic, and smugly threw it into Ricochet’s face.

Jazz laughed so hard she fell to the deck.

“There,” Prowl said, coiling up the rope around her harpoon. “That’s three.”

“Good job, beautiful.” Jazz climbed back to her feet and cast her net over the nearest section of the school, catching mostly birds, but also a pair of fish. “T’bring back,” she explained.

“That mean I can eat one’a these?” Prowl asked, picking up one of her fish.

“Yep.”

“Gonna need it,” Ricochet said with relish. “We git back’n yer gonna be runnin’ again. An’ weapon practice. At th’ _same time.”_ She cackled.

“Does Smokescreen know you’re a sadist?” Sundance mewed.

“He probably likes it,” Prowl mewed back, wiping the ash away from a patch of scales so she could open the fish with a knife and drink. The familiar taste of fish energon settled her. Even with the ashy taste she couldn’t help but get in her mouth from the water on its plating, it had a strong crystalline flavor she liked.

She missed another silent conversation as she drank, but that was alright. It was probably another disagreement over how to handle her training, and while Prowl appreciated Jazz’s concern, she knew she’d get better faster working with Ricochet. She wouldn’t enjoy it as much, but they didn’t have the time to cater to Jazz’s unintentional coddling.

As if to prove the point, the mountain rumbled in the distance. Prowl looked up in time to see a new fountain of fire burst up through the rock in a long ribbon of orange and red.

When they returned to the fleet, Prowl saw that the Rainclouds boats had spread out. Some were gone, out fishing, and the birds they brought back were well received even though they hadn’t brought back enough to share with everyone. Being more spread out, though, didn’t mean the waters were empty. _This_ was closer to the number of warriors that reportedly attacked Praxan ships each vorn, and the newcomers had brought more food, more proof they were good providers, proof they weren’t going to be a burden to an already stressed clan.

As they pulled back alongside Wheeljack’s kattumaram, Prowl spotted Leaf next to three more crates of (presumably) seed crystals for replanting the jungle. She curled around them protectively in her recharge, even though she couldn’t get her frame to fit around more than one.

“She really loves those plants,” Sundance meowed.

“She does.” Prowl didn’t share the specific affinity, but she understood the affection and the pain it was currently causing her. “She’s hurting after what happened. I’d feel the same way if a library burned down.”

“Well, well, look who’s joined us after all.”

Prowl looked up and followed Ricochet’s gaze. No one stood out to her, but Jazz smiled at one of the new sails. “She’s a good one t’have in a fight.”

“Prickly though.” Ricochet dropped their anchor and rolled her shoulders. “An’ none too fond’a yer new tactics, last I’d heard. Convinced yer not long fer this world if ya keep floutin’ tradition.”

The sail was distinctive. It was an aggressive blue and red, with runic markings Prowl knew must have required trading a lot of favors for because the warrior (or warriors) would have needed a priest-mage to sew and stitch them on just for them. Unlike many other ships, which had a long ribbon attached to the very top of the mast reminiscent of the kahawai, this one had a long thin flag shaped like a sharkticon.

“She didn’t need t’come if she don’t like it,” Jazz huffed. “S’got a sharkticon’s hunger in ’er spark, but not th’god’s mind.”

Prowl frowned. “What’s that mean?”

“Mako thinks havin’ a sharkticon spirit gives ’er insight inta Carcharhinidae’s will,” Jazz answered, stretching some kinks out of her shoulders as well.

“She ain’t th’only one,” Ricochet cautioned, and Jazz stuck her tongue out at her.

“But priest-mages don’t actually speak for th’gods… do they?” Prowl looked at Sundance. “I certainly don’t speak fer th’god’a shipcats.”

Sundance snickered.

“Don’t. Ain’t no one who can speak th’words’a anythin’ but their own spirit,” Jazz said firmly. “Some priest-mages’ve got foresight, or a wider purview, an’ can tell what’ll make th’gods angry. Like Leaf. If she says somethin’ll upset Meakanu,” one of several gods of crystals trees, “I’d listen. An’ of course there’s Hounds…” Jazz trailed off with a shrug.

“God, spirit…” Ricochet continued. “Ain’t always a clear difference between ’em. Maybe bein’ a sharkticon gives ’er some insight. Maybe not. Gotta wait fer th’god t’show where ’is favor lies.”

“How would ’e do that?” Prowl was genuinely curious. On the mainland, priests _did_ speak for the gods, and in Praxus those outside the priesthood _sometimes_ listened. But if priest-mages didn’t exactly speak for the gods, and people here still took what the gods had to say seriously, there had to be ways they communicated for themselves. The dog-shark ritual was something warriors only did once, so it couldn’t be that… Her optics strayed to the island and she gulped. “Did Rainclouds make Keahi angry?”

“No,” Jazz said firmly. “’Less she wants ya fer a mate, Keahi don’t care one bit ’bout mortals.”

Well, that was a relief. Prowl relaxed and kept thinking. Maybe Keahi didn’t care, but Carcharhinidae did. Running afoul of the Teeth was a sign he had it out for you, and being eaten by sharkticons meant the god had come for you, according to Ricochet. “How’s Carcharhinidae’s displeasure manifest on a raid then?”

“Can _always_ git eaten by a shark,” Ricochet put in nastily and Jazz pushed her hard enough that she flailed and had to catch herself on the deck of the kattumaram. She cackled.

“On a raid… could fail,” Jazz answered more seriously, shoving her twin again. “If th’raid leader’s injured bad enough an’ can’t fight, ’s’a bad omen. Or someone could call ’im t’witness a fight, if we need ’is judgement.”

Right. Trial by combat was a legitimate way of solving disputes outside the harvest season, and victors were considered to have the gods on their side in whatever issue was in contention — provided the issue was something more significant than stolen property. And anyone could issue a challenge. “Did she come t’cause trouble? Or just t’observe?”

“Ain’t any’a us forecasters.”

“We’ll see,” Jazz said at the same time.

“I believe the Praxan phrase is ‘don’t borrow trouble’,” Sundance meowed philosophically.

“We certainly have enough already without adding to it,” Prowl agreed. “Guess we’ll just have t’play nice’n hope she doesn’t try t’start anything.”

Jazz counted up the warriors’ boats and smiled grimly. “Last’a ’em should be ’ere tonight, if they’re comin’,” she said. “Gonna go over th’wind’n waves fer any new warriors who might not’ve been t’Prax before then.” She gave her twin a pointed look.

“Gotcha.” Ricochet smirked.

“Wind’n waves?” Prowl asked, suspecting she was one of the warriors Jazz meant. “What’s that?”

“Wayfindin’?” Jazz tried translating. “Study th’mahere rakau. _Maps.”_

“Oh!” She’d completely forgotten. “Definitely wanna learn that.”

“Thought so.” Jazz smiled. She kissed Prowl on her chevron. “Go on. Y’an’ Rico have fun.”

“Fun, huh?” Prowl looked over at Ricochet. “Fer one’a us, maybe.”

“Maybe,” Ricochet agreed. She reached over and snagged Jazz’s gladius from its sheath on her twin’s spine. “Come on. Time t’run.”

Prowl mimicked her with her club, not looking forward to the prospect. She saw Sundance creep slowly back under the blanket in the sleeping hull.

“Don’t ferget yer spirit.”

“What if m’spirit fergets me?” Prowl asked, then meowed at Sundance. “If I have to do it, you have to do it. At least you don’t have to keep track of a weapon!”

The cat sighed. “Fine. Catch me if you can!” she yowled at Ricochet and bolted out from under the blanket, leaping to the next boat without pause.

“Now that’s more like it!” Ricochet jumped after her, and Prowl was quick to follow. No way she was getting yelled at for falling behind already!

With the boats more spread out, there was a lot more swimming and climbing involved this cycle than the last. Several times she was glad her club floated, because diving down to retrieve it every time she dropped it would have been a pain.

And this time she had to spar with Ricochet in between being chased and chasing her around. The kattumaram were slippery, rocky, and just plain _hard_ to fight on. Nothing was stable at all, but it didn’t seem to cause Ricochet any trouble. She chased and fought and called out instructions for Prowl, yelling at her to block, strike, move her _Keahi-damned feet!_ until Prowl started doing it all by frame memory.

They were both delighted when Sundance swiped at Ricochet’s ankle and put four neat scores in the paint, then dodged the retaliatory kick without trouble, even though Prowl would prefer Sundance stay _out_ of combat!

The islander used the Iaconi gladius well enough. Prowl blamed the frantic chase for how long it took her to realize that Ricochet was imitating the fighting style of a Praxan soldier.

“Yer awfully good at that,” she said, panting, when Ricochet finally called a short break.

Ricochet shrugged. “If y’were joinin’ at th’beginnin’a th’season, I’d start ya with our own styles.”

“But we’re raidin’ ships, not other clans.” Meaning once again, she had to do things out of order based on what she’d need first. “How’d ya learn t’fight like that?”

“M’own teacher taught m’first,” she admitted. “Since Jazz’s too much a softspark t’train th’newlin’s right, I made sure I knew it _real_ well.”

“Oh? Ain’t just me she’d go easy on?”

“You she’d go super easy on. Ain’t doin’ ya any favors with that.”

“I know.” Prowl met Ricochet’s gaze. “’S why I ain’t complainin’ ya took over.”

Ricochet grinned crookedly. “Least y’don’t whine as much as a newlin’.” She stretched and stood. “Up. Break’s over.”

Pest! Prowl would have whined at that, if only a little, but now she couldn’t! Growling, she forced herself back to her feet.

Several joors later, a smirking Ricochet delivered her back to Wheeljack’s kattumaram where she rather embarrassingly collapsed in front of what she presumed was a gathering of the other warriors who’d only chosen their path this vorn. And Jazz.

“Hi,” she gasped out, struggling to hold her head up. Sundance settled next to her, only somewhat less winded.

Jazz petted Prowl’s nearest door. “Hey, beautiful.” She helped her sit up, patted her again, then paced over to a pair of baskets Prowl actually remembered loading up onto Wheeljack’s kattumaram. She hadn’t looked inside then, but now she looked on while Jazz dug through the contents, trying to see the—

Sticks. Sticks bound together with string.

“That’s not a map,” Sundance meowed, much louder than necessary in Prowl’s opinion.

“Shh!”

Jazz laid the stick thing down in middle of the group on the slowly rocking deck. “’S’a mahere rakau,” said with a sidelong glance at Prowl. “We ain’t takin’ it with us,” she warned, “so y’gotta know it.” She opened the other basket and started laying out shells around in a circle around the mahere rakau.

She didn’t even know how to read it, and she was supposed to memorize it? Prowl leaned forward, watching intently and hoping it would start to make sense.

It didn’t really. Jazz did point out the tiny stones that were meant to represent Rainclouds and the nearest islands, and then the one for Hightower, but she just couldn’t work out what the intervening space was for.

“The star-shells are stars,” Sundance said as Jazz set out a white square stone and placed it in the ring. “That cube is supposed to be the sun.”

“A star chart I can read,” Prowl said, able to make that much out; it was only the stars that were on the horizon at sunrise, “but I don’t understand what they mean relative to the islands. If we’re sailing all the way to Hightower, they’ll move. And none of it explains the sticks.” They had to be important somehow, because Jazz was being very precise about how she placed the other markers around them, and she knew they existed in the space that represented the Rust Sea, but they didn’t match what she knew of where the Teeth were. So what were they?

The others didn’t share her confusion. They nodded along as Jazz talked about how the wind would feel, seemingly following just fine when she moved the sun-representing stone to the “west” of the diagram and moved all of the star-shells to new sunset positions.

Great. That made sense. _What about the sticks?!_

But Jazz continued to talk about the _winds_ while she moved the stars again into new places to represent another sunrise.

The others all had plenty of questions about the stars; apparently in that respect, Prowl was actually ahead of them. It made her hesitant to interrupt with a completely different question, but finally she had to speak up. “What’re the sticks?”

“They’re th’swells,” Jazz explained gently. “How th’water moves yer kattumaram.”

What? “How d’ya know which way they go?”

“Go up’n down, beautiful. It’s how they _feel.”_ Jazz tapped the deck.

“Meant on th’komba,” Prowl said, using the Polyhexian word for compass. “Do th’sticks show that somehow, or are ya just supposed t’know?”

“How d’ya _not_ know?” one of the others asked. “Didn’t ya pay any attention out at sea?”

“Did! Just not t’that.” Prowl’s doors sagged. “Didn’t know it was a thing.”

“Sticks don’t show that,” Jazz cut in before the other warrior could tease Prowl again. “Th’swells move same direction on th’komba as th’wind most’a th’time. But this,” she gestured down at the mahere rakau, “will tell y’where y’are.”

Sundance sprawled out on the deck. “…I’m going to have trouble remembering that,” she meowed sadly.

It was an entirely new way of thinking about position, Prowl admitted to herself. The stars made sense to her. The winds made sense in theory, since those were what carried the boat along. But knowing her location by the movement of the kattumaram beneath her?

“…I’m not going to be able to remember it all just from this either,” she told Sundance. She reached for her bag. “It okay if I make a memory spell?” she asked Jazz.

Jazz hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. “Usually we’d be on sand, let y’all draw it a few times until y’git it. But should work on rememberin’ it fer yerself.”

“Will. ’S why I wanna draw th’spell,” Prowl explained. The process of physically copying the information would help her remember it, even if she never actually looked at the drawing or her notes again (which of course she had every intention of doing, which would only help more).

A couple of the other students watched interestedly when she pulled out her book and her inkpen, which was really a copper stick she’d whittled down to a point and put a slit in so it’d hold the ink. Her original inkpen had been lost or stolen a decacycle ago and she hadn’t bothered looking for it, figuring that if it had been stolen that would be more insulting to the thief, and if it had been lost she’d just be wasting her time digging in the sand.

Jazz didn’t really wait for her to sketch out the mahere rakau; she continued her descriptions of the wind and moved the horizon stars as they “moved” along their journey. She described sounds and smells and a hundred other things Prowl would never have thought important to navigation. She dutifully took notes on everything: _Swells move on the surface the same direction as the wind,_ she jotted quickly when Jazz paused to rearrange the stars again. _Lines on the map represent an up and down rhythm that changes place to place._

Halfway through the “journey”, Jazz replaced the first mahere rakau with another one. It was a different size (scale? What was scale?), but Prowl quickly found the stone beads tied onto the structure that were meant to represent the islands and Hightower.

“This one’s fer different swells,” Jazz explained, looking directly at Prowl. “Other one was fer swells that’re th’same all th’time, but this one’s fer th’war season only. Th’pattern layers on top’a th’other.”

As she began describing the winds that corresponded with the second mahere rakau, it became clear that there were places in the sea where there were forces moving in multiple directions at once. How did that work? What did it feel like? How was she supposed to keep straight when which places were moving which way?

“The same way you learned how the stars change with the seasons,” Sundance meowed. She was sitting up again, studying the “map” with interest.

“Learning that took a lot of time,” Prowl pointed out, petting the “stars” she could read perfectly on her familiar’s plating.

“So will this. She knows the sea like you know the sky. That’s not the kind of knowledge you can pick up in a single study session.”

“But Jazz said I had to know it, that we weren’t taking it with us.”

“We’re taking _her_ with us,” Sundance looked over her shoulder and blinked slowly, “aren’t we?”

Prowl blinked too. That was true. And it put things into a new light. None of them were going to be master navigators right away, and they were all going on boats with other warriors — warriors who did know all this. This was a lesson, a _first_ lesson at that; not the only time they’d ever see or hear this information. It was possible parts of this wouldn’t make sense until she’d experienced it out at sea, but that was okay, because Jazz would be there to answer questions. And this time Prowl would know what questions to ask, instead of ignoring important information because she didn’t know any better.

She took a _lot_ of notes.

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	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter warnings:** Discussion of "human" sacrifice, sacrifice via combat, minor character death, ritualized drug use.

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This time Prowl didn’t get a tether anchoring her to the mast. Between the better weather and having both Jazz and Ricochet sailing, the journey across the open sea went quickly, though being out on the water still had a sort of timeless quality to it. No sooner had they left the Teeth behind than the shores of Praxus were on the horizon — or so it seemed.

More important, of course, was the Praxan  _ ship  _ on the horizon.

Somehow, Prowl hadn’t expected to be confronted by the reality of what they were here to do so quickly upon arriving. She’d thought they’d have to go looking for a ship first, not find one all but waiting for them. Did this mean they were going to attack… right now?

Ricochet looked to Jazz. Prowl couldn’t see the expressions of any of the other warriors, since she could barely even see their boats, but it felt like they were looking at her too.

Jazz looked back towards Hightower, scanning the coastline as though considering the shadow of a city she couldn’t even see. 

“Call a check in,” Jazz decided. “If everyone answers, we’ll attack.”

Ricochet nodded and lifted the tetere to her lips. She let out a short burst of sound, just their own personal signifier, then listened for the responses. Prowl had gotten a lot better at listening for and translating the basics of the tetere music-speech (she was still rubbish at replicating the sounds) over the last several cycles, since most of the communication among the fleet had been with the calling horn.

Tensely, Prowl counted the answering calls. Would it be better if they all answered? Or not?

One by one, the horns called in the fate of the Praxan ship. Prowl briefly bowed her head when the last one sounded.

“Call th’attack,” Jazz ordered, swinging the sail to chase down the Praxan ship.

Sundance brushed up against Prowl’s side. “Ready?”

_ No.  _ “Yes.” She was committed to this now. She scritched her familiar’s ears, then readied her alter self spell. It was the first she needed to cast, but it had a time limit, and she didn’t want to waste any of its duration.

The chase seemed to happen in slow motion. Like watching the graceful swoops and swerves of the Tooth Race, Prowl couldn’t really appreciate the speed they were going at until they were close enough to the Praxan ship to see the rowers dipping their oars in the water in a frantic effort to add speed to their sails.

A new tetere sounded, one Prowl had only heard once along the journey from the red-and-blue runic-sailed kattumaram. Now as then, she felt the spirits respond to the call. Her thoughts and vision sharpened into the terrible focus of a predator locked onto its prey; she could almost taste the blood in the water… then she shook off the gift. Mako meant well, summoning her spiritual swarm of sharkticons to assist the warriors in battle, but Prowl needed to be able to focus, and she couldn’t think clearly past their single-minded bloodlust. Regathering her own magic, she cast her spell, altering her shape. Her fingertips elongated into claws as her hands curled into fists, the other more subtle changes heightening her senses in a way that didn’t cloud her thoughts. 

Within a klik, Ricochet was angling them up alongside the Praxan ship, and they weren’t the only ones. The other one- and two-person kattumaram were catching it first, but the slightly larger ones weren’t far behind, and the big lumbering thing couldn’t exactly swerve away from the smaller, nimble Polyhexian boats. As Prowl already knew, their only option now was an offensive defense. 

Sure enough, a row of archers popped over the railing and a rain of fire came down on the Polyhexian raiders. Most of the fire-arrows hit the water with soft sizzles and plumes of there-and-gone steam, but a few landed on sails and rigging. Jazz and Ricochet snarled, while Prowl leapt into action. Usually, Jazz had told her a cycle after leaving Polyhex, it would be Ricochet putting out the fires, but since Prowl was still not the greatest at throwing things, they were depending on her to take on the task. 

At her mental command, her newly cast unseen servant snatched up a full bucket and climbed up to the mast to put out the flames. Jazz roared triumphantly as they turned to steam and disappeared. Prowl didn’t let the sound distract her, concentrating on filling the next bucket without falling into the swiftly moving water.

Ricochet chuffed an animal-laugh and kicked open the box of Wheeljack-made alchemical spells. An artificial wera-swarm smashed onto the deck of the Praxan ship a nanoklik later, and she echoed Jazz’s roar. 

The next volley of Praxan arrows had fewer missiles. 

Some of the kattumaram cut around the other side of the Praxan ship, lobbing distractions onto the other side of the deck and splitting the crew’s attention. Prowl could hear the sailors shouting; some yelling orders, others just yelling. The wera, apparently, were extremely effective. No one knew what they were but they learned quickly and painfully they didn’t want to be anywhere near them.

With fewer projectiles to worry about, it was time to start boarding. Ricochet wasn’t the first to launch her harpoon and snag the railing of the ship, but she was close; the yells of warriors launching their weapons and themselves from their decks to climb up onto the galleon echoed all around. Prowl felt the lurch as the larger ship began towing them by the heavy line Ricochet had secured, and Jazz swiftly twisted the sail to angle the kattumaram so they wouldn’t collide. 

Both twins roared in unison and leaped from their own deck, digging their claws into the side of the Praxan ship to join the swarm up over the side, and Prowl prepared to join them. Sundance, despite her protests, would be staying behind. She wanted to fight, but even she admitted that she was more likely to fall into the water attempting to scale the boat than actually make it to the deck. Rather than risk it, she and a small bucket made from a glitchmouse capsule were tasked with putting out any fires from arrows that landed on the kattumaram while they were fighting.

Silently Prowl instructed the unseen servant to stay on the kattumaram and keep throwing the wera spells; it would dissipate soon, once she was out of range to maintain it. Then, steeling herself against the Praxan cries, she jumped across the water and latched onto the ship.

A sailor threw a spear at her as she climbed, but he hadn’t bothered to aim it properly. Prowl froze in place and it missed, and the mech was gone by the time she started moving again. Running from the wera, probably.

Luckily, Prowl knew something about the wera spells that the Praxan sailors did not: the artificial hexbugs did not fly far from where the capsule holding them shattered, so she was able to avoid them as she hauled herself over the railing. Many of the spirit-possessed warriors didn’t care about the wera enough to bother with even that much, and ran right through them heedlessly. And why wouldn’t they? Wheeljack had given this batch the much more common kina toxin instead of either the rare, real wera poison or the much more potent, but difficult to handle, gympie poison he’d used in the capsules meant for raids against other islands. She’d had mixed feelings about that, when Wheeljack had told her that her own relative lack of resistance to the island’s poisons had inspired this variation. She’d inadvertently revealed a weakness of Praxan defenses against the islands and their ways of making weapons and spells, and that knowledge stung, though at least no one would die from these artificial wera. They would only suffer from nausea and pain, which, while unpleasant and difficult to fight through, weren’t themselves fatal. 

Once her feet were solidly on the deck, Prowl drew her club and cast her illusory duplicates spell as a precaution before moving toward the masts. The oars were abandoned, the sailors responsible for them much more concerned with fighting off the barbarians in their midst. That would help slow the ship, but as the only warrior not possessed by either Mako’s sharkticons or her own spirit and therefore not subject to any  _ hunt/prey!  _ fixation, Prowl had a very specific job to do, to speed up the process, as it were. 

A roar of fire thrust outward from Ember’s hands nearby as she darted toward the rigging, leaving stunned sailors and soldiers in its wake. The magical flames didn’t catch anything on fire, burning pure and clear and, for the first time, she noticed his magic added the scents of rock and ash to the air, rather than that of a truly clean fire. The smell of the mountain; Keahi’s Hound indeed. Trusting her illusory doubles to take a couple arrows, at least, Prowl tossed her innate glitterdust ability at those he’d missed. 

Moving through Mako’s song-summoned spirits was disconcerting, confusing. She could feel the intangible sharkticons nudging at her body and mind, asking if she wanted their help, promising her strength and power and predatory focus if she accepted them. She couldn’t get the taste of blood and salt water out of her mouth, couldn’t stop long enough to try. It took what concentration she had to aim for individuals as she ran, blinding and hindering those sailors directly in her path rather than blasting indiscriminate damage at everyone in spell casting range. 

At last, she reached the mast that was her target. Prowl knew a little about Praxan rigging; less, now, than she knew about Polyhexian sails and ropes, but as it turned out, you didn’t need to know much about rigging to mess it up.

Her thoughts wandered briefly as she started cutting the ropes. How were Praxan ropes made? Was the process different from the ones used in Polyhex? Surely it must be, for Praxus to manufacture ropes so thick, and sailcloth in such large sheets… 

_ Eep! _

A sailor’s shout startled her as he spotted her and charged. Instinctively, Prowl moved. Like it belonged to someone else, her club went up to block, just like Ricochet had drilled into her. Other instincts latched onto the defensive motion and she cast; one of her hydraulic push spells warped into something new, throwing aside the sailor’s attack like a shield. Distantly her mind gibbered that this wasn’t a spell she knew, it shouldn’t be doing this, and she needed her notebook — or at least to talk it over with Sundance — so she didn’t forget how to do it again, but there was no time. She was being attacked! The mech kept coming, the sharp blade of his sword whistling far too close to her head!

She stepped back and summoned a star.

It burned, exploding inside the sailor’s chassis for only an instant. An instant that left scorchmarks and blistered paint all over his frame as he fell over. Dead? She’d said she wasn’t going to kill anyone! It had been instinct! But she didn’t have time to check if he was alive. She had to finish her job.

Climbing through the rigging was almost laughably easy. She could have managed  _ without  _ claws, everything was arranged so neatly. The rope ladders proved no challenge at all after all the climbing she’d done on Harvest, on Rainclouds, even just on the kattumaram, and she cut them down behind her without hesitation. She didn’t need them to get back down safely.

At the top, she resisted the urge to just leap out onto the sail and let her weight and claws tear great holes in them, turning them to tatters. That was the sharkticon spirits’ whispered recklessness speaking. Instead she scurried along the sails’ supports, slicing ropes with her claws until the first half-fell. Shouts of alarm from the startled crew echoed up from below. 

An arrow whizzed by, almost hitting her helm. She ducked with a squeak. A second arrow hit the metal just beneath her with a  _ thunk!  _ Fumbling with her spell component pouch, she flung an acid arrow spell back and tried not to think about the fact that the arrows stopped after that.

The ship was slowing significantly; Prowl could feel their speed dropping along with the sails, and knew it wouldn’t be long now. The weight of the kattumaram dragging behind the ship would steal its momentum until they came to a complete stop, moved only by the tide, and then… 

Two soldiers started climbing the remaining rigging. Prowl threw a web spell that turned the ropes and half-fallen sail utterly impassible, then set to finishing off the last knots. 

The battle below was winding down. Some of the soldiers who knew their fate was to be thrown to the sharkticons were fighting to the death. Others were jumping overboard in an attempt to swim ashore — a death sentence for a Praxan even without the physical, metal-and-energon sharkticons summoned by Mako that circled the boats, waiting for their chance to affect the battle. Many of the crew who were left were surrendering, laying down on the deck with their hands on their helms so the spirit-possessed warriors would pass them by as no threat.

Several warriors lost rear tires or hydraulic cables to that not-threat instinct of their spirits, stepping over “surrendered” Praxans only to be stabbed by prone sailors who’d decided to fight to the death after all. A few of the youngest warriors shook off their spirit-possession to start tying up the rest of the prisoners before they could change their minds.

Should she come down yet? She was both safer and more effective, combat-wise, above the melee, but she wouldn’t be able to argue for the prisoners’ lives from the top of the mast. Looking out across the deck, Prowl saw a small knot of soldiers defending the helm against Ricochet and a group of others. They were holding out for now, but it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed… Prowl hesitated with the sulfur in her hand. If she sent fireworks at them, Ricochet and the rest would take the opening to kill them, and their deaths would be her fault. If she didn’t, the soldiers would wound and possibly kill some of the warriors, putting  _ their  _ deaths at her feet.

_ Lose-lose. _

While she fought that battle with herself, one of the soldiers successfully landed a heavy blow to Ricochet’s helm. She staggered back with a howl of rage and what probably would have been pain if the fishing cat hadn’t been spurring her on. With a low growl of anger and frustration, Prowl sent her fireworks down to disrupt the soldiers. 

Shouts of surprise could barely be heard over the loud  _ crack-boom! _ of the fireworks. Soldiers and sailors alike scattered, and Ricochet leaped into the fray with her harpoon. None of the Praxans at the helm survived, and the only consolation for Prowl was the knowledge that they wouldn’t have laid down arms even without her interference.

She watched Jazz stalk the length of the ship once, prowling like the predator she was, then shake off her spirit’s help. She was worn out, Prowl knew, but the way Jazz stood proudly, bouncing almost eagerly on her feet as she surveyed the carnage, no one would guess just how fatigued she was. Around her, the other warriors were doing the same. Mako’s sharkticons left without so much as a whisper of sound. All of the Praxans were subdued, either dead or captured. 

Now it was definitely time to come down. Prowl made quick work of getting to the deck and headed for her mate.

Jazz greeted her with a smile. “Git th’barrels loaded up,” she barked at the other warriors, all just as tired as she was, but there would be no rest until they were clear of the scene. “We’ll sort ’em out when we git t’shore.”

Most of the warriors rushed to obey. 

One didn’t.

“Ain’t ya fergettin’ somethin’?” Mako growled. The other Polyhexians scattered in her wake.

“Nope,” Jazz said pleasantly, facing the warrior-mage head on. “Not fergettin’ anything.”

“Y’know as well as I do that Carcharhinidae needs t’eat. We gotta feed ’is kin.”

“Will.” Jazz’s pleasant tone didn’t waver. “Will toss th’corpses overboard when we leave. Don’t see a need t’rile ’em up while we’re still takin’ what  _ we _ need.”

“Th’ _ corpses,  _ huh?” Mako scowled and thrust out her chin. “Sounds t’me like yer either goin’ soft or goin’ daft.”

“Ain’t goin’ neither,” Jazz said, the first hint of a growl threatening in her otherwise calm voice. “Cargo first. Y’wanna argue with me, y’do it after we git what we came fer.”

Argue about what? Prowl watched the standoff, wondering if it meant what she thought — what she  _ hoped  _ — it did. 

Jazz’s warning growl was enough to put off a fight while they busted open the holds and emptied them. Some warriors went down to sidle their kattumaram up right against the hull of the galleon so the loot could be more easily loaded. Prowl helped, now glad she’d had a little practice doing this during the evacuation.

Seeing how many crates of various things they were taking, it occurred for the first time that most of the Praxan-made shipping crates she’d seen in Polyhex were probably stolen rather than bought during trade. The warriors went through everything with brutal efficiency, pulling out fuel and other things that were either useful or valuable without wasting any time. The other new warriors didn’t recognize all of what was passing through their hands as they got things squared away on the boats, but Prowl could read the labels. The experienced raiders definitely knew what to go for.

The pall of the confrontation with Mako loomed over the activity. Prowl took stock of her arguments and her spells as the flow of crates and barrels slowed to a trickle. This was one of the reasons she’d come: to try and keep these prisoners alive.

When Ricochet came up from the hold with the last crate, Jazz called out across the deck, “That’s it! Round up th’dead!”

“Sharkticons —  _ Carcharhinidae _ wants more’n corpses,” Mako growled, stalking aggressively into the center of the deck.

“Work while I talk,” Jazz said to the hesitating warriors, then stepped up to face Mako. “’E got more’n corpses. Weren’t everyone went overboard already dead durin’ th’fightin’, y’know.”

“Th’god wants ’is due!”

“’Course ’e does. What’s ’is due though?”

“All’a ’em,” Mako snarled, pointing to the prisoners. “Every last one’a ’em!”

“Y’sure?” Jazz stepped sideways to put herself between Mako and the cowering Praxans. “Death in battle’s one thing, but th’battle’s over. D’they really  _ all  _ have’ta die?”

The prisoners couldn’t understand their words, but Jazz’s movement and Mako’s pointing gave them enough of a clue to start whispering. “Are they arguing about us?”

“About what to do with us, it looks like.”

“But… I thought barbarians always killed everyone when they attack.”

Prowl resisted the urge to go over and talk to them, reassure them. No one was calling out to her, as the princess or even as a  _ fellow Praxan, _ to make appeals or even just tell them what was going on, so she guessed that between the alter self (which she’d had to re-cast while loading crates so she could climb back up the side of the ship) and the ritual paint and decorations they hadn’t recognized her. She felt relieved at that, but also guilty that she was relieved.

More than either of those, though, she felt hope and love. Jazz hadn’t said she was going to spare the prisoners but here she was, trying to do just that.

“Think I know more ’bout sharkticons than y’do, kitty,” Mako growled. She started to circle, and Ricochet silently stepped forward to stop her. “Carcharhinidae’n ’is kin’re always hungry, never satisfied. Y’want th’god’s favor, y’give ’im ’is due!”

“Y’wanna feed ’em t’yer pets,” Ricochet growled evenly, openly stating the ultimatum Jazz had merely been implying, “y’go through us first.”

No one was making any pretense of not paying attention now. Every single one of the warriors were watching intently, gathering in a large, informal circle. 

“Are they going to fight?”

“Should we be hoping for one over the other?”

“I think we want blue visor to win.”

Prowl bit back the urge to tell them Jazz’s name. Drawing attention to herself wasn’t a good idea, either with the prisoners or with Mako.

“Yer foreign  _ Prax,” _ Mako spat, apparently perfectly aware of her anyway as she continued to circle, “mate has corrupted ya. She don’t have ’is favor. She’ll  _ never _ have ’is favor. Carcharhinidae wants blood, an’ that little  _ shipcat’s _ too timid t’ever give it to ’im.”

Distressingly, Prowl heard a murmur of agreement go through the watching warriors. More of them, it sounded like, agreed with Mako than with Jazz. Mercy was not a Polyhexian virtue.

“Y’might have a sharkticon spirit,” Jazz said lowly, flexing her claws, “but y’don’t speak fer th’god. M’mate’s dog-shark hunt’ll tell where she an’ Carcharhinidae stand with each other, but  _ I _ am th’one sayin’ no ’ere. I led this raid. I’ve led over fifty successful raids against Prax’n I say I’ve killed  _ enough’a ’em.” _

Mako didn’t bother demanding she prove herself in words. With a roar that had Prowl’s doors flinching back at the volume of sound and magic, she lunged at Jazz in challenge.

Jazz roared back. They clashed in a blaze of fangs and claws that had all of the prisoners cowering anew. 

It was a short-lived grapple. With a fierce twist, Jazz threw Mako off of her and overboard. The Praxan prisoners relaxed, thinking the short fight was over, but Prowl and the Polyhexians all knew better. Mako was a superb swimmer, like all of them, and the sharks in the water were her own. Her magic was still hovering in the air, the intangible teeth  _ very _ different now that Mako and her spirits considered her an enemy.

Later she would realize she should have expected it, but in the moment, it surprised Prowl when, caught up in her own fury, Jazz rushed the side of the boat and dove in after Mako instead of waiting for her to climb back to the deck.

_ Jazz!  _ Prowl didn’t cry out, but even if she had no one would have heard her over the sudden chorus of jeers and shouts from the other warriors. Several of them ran over to the side of the ship to watch the challenge play out, and Prowl started to follow before looking back at the prisoners. They were tied up, but it wouldn’t be wise to leave them unsupervised.

Trying not to cringe too visibly at the snarls and splashes and cries rising from the water, Prowl checked everyone’s restraints to make sure no one had used the drama to wiggle loose.

“Please,” one of the prisoners pleaded. “What’s going to happen to us? Please tell me?”

She  _ couldn’t  _ pretend she didn’t understand him, no matter how bad an idea it might be, or how strange it felt to be speaking Praxan again after almost exclusively speaking Polyhexian for so long. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “It depends who wins the fight.”

He started sobbing, but the mech next to him focused on her with wide, frightened optics at the comprehensible answer. “What’s going on?”

“They’re…” She didn’t want to panic them, but she wasn’t willing to lie either. “They’re disagreeing over how many people to sacrifice.”

That made all of the mechs who could hear her shudder and shrink away fearfully.

“So we’re going to die,” the most composed of them said in a flat voice that told Prowl that composure was the product of shock. 

“Only if—” she probably shouldn’t use names “—the zealot wins,” she said. “The raid leader believes there has been enough death.”

He nodded absently, hearing without fully processing in his current state. The glimmer of hope didn’t seem to register with most of them, in fact. Prowl supposed she couldn’t blame them, and fell silent. 

The splashes and growls and hisses coming from the fight weren’t dying off. Prowl wasn’t sure how Jazz could win. Sharkticons were attracted to the scent of energon in the water. Mako didn’t have to keep calling more from the surrounding sea to eventually overwhelm Jazz; she just needed to keep summoning her spirit for them, buffing and directing the ones that came.

She shouldn’t have let the fight go to the water, Prowl thought, on the edge of trembling herself. And yet, Ricochet hadn’t jumped in after her; surely that was a good sign? She wouldn’t just stand there if her twin was in mortal peril when she’d put them both forward for the challenge, right?

“Hey! Git away from ’em!” The sudden growl came from right behind her, and Prowl found herself being pulled backward before she could even turn her head to reply. “Thought y’could let ’em git away, did ya?”

“No,” Prowl hissed back, wrenching her arm free. “Was makin’ sure they  _ didn’t  _ git away while y’all ran over t’watch th’fight.”

“Liar.”

A deep growl filled the space between them. Prowl didn’t realize right away that it was coming from her, but it did stop briefly when she called out the word to summon a jet of water to knock the mech away from her. “’M  _ not  _ a liar!” 

He slammed into the mast with a wet  _ thunk! _ and fell to the ground. The altercation quickly attracted the attention of several other warriors. Someone else stepped forward, only to be stopped by Ricochet.  _ No!  _ She should be with Jazz! Prowl didn’t need her help to handle this.

“Yer a  _ Prax,” _ the now very wet warrior snarled as he stood, flexing his claws. “Jazz is only doin’ this fer  _ you. _ Th’god’ll withdraw ’is protection, an’ we’ll all die cuz’a  _ you.” _ He lunged at her, his spirit flowing into his frame with the movement.

In a flash of inspiration, Prowl used her prestidigitation cantrip to coat him in a thin layer of the same oil Sundance had bemoaned so loudly. Between her sidestepping and him sliding, his lunge failed to connect. “Ain’t doin’ it  _ just  _ fer me. Might’a been my idea, but if she didn’t agree,  _ she’s  _ th’leader. I don’t make decisions for ’er,” she spat as he struggled to turn around without falling. He was insulting them both now, and she wasn’t going to stand for it! “Means she thinks th’god’ll be satisfied with th’lives ’e already has’n no one else has t’die, includin’ us!”

Of course a warrior in his rage wasn’t exactly up for a rational debate; he dug his claws into the deck to stabilize himself while he got his feet under him and lunged again with a howl.

Hand to hand combat with a spirit-possessed warrior. Prowl wished she could call up the water shield again! But the spell was gone, burned out of her memory with the castings she’d already done. Most of her spells were gone at this point, after using so many in the process of boarding and taking the ship. Until she got a chance to review with Sundance, she was down to the weakest that couldn’t be forgotten and the strongest she’d held in reserve — and if she kept holding back, she was going to be torn to shreds.

Raising her hand, Prowl called her magic to her fingertips and let it fly forth in three powerful missiles.

They slammed into the warrior with bursts of blue-white light. He howled and fell.

_ Stay down, stay down, stay down.  _ Prowl stood tall, preparing to cast again if she had to. “Yeah, I’m Prax,” she said, mostly for the benefit of the audience, “but I’m here fightin’ fer m’clan, fer  _ Rainclouds.  _ Ain’t doin’ anything t’bring ’em more grief from th’hands’a th’gods than we already have.”

“Well said, beautiful,” Jazz —  _ Jazz! _ — said as she hauled herself up over the railing to flop down on the deck. 

Where she bled copiously.

Prowl knew better than to get in the way of those who were actually skilled at bandaging, so, “Y’popped yer rear tire again,” was all she said, feeling rather in shock.

Jazz laughed, seemingly unaffected by her injuries despite their number and severity. “What can I say? New rubber must taste good.”

“Not good enough t’eat all’a ya,” Ricochet said, clapping Prowl on her shoulder before walking over to her twin. “Looks like Carcharhinidae don’t have such a problem with yer ideas after all.”

Jazz grinned, showing off her fangs.

.

.

.

And so, with what everyone viewed as the god’s approval (or at least indifference), the prisoners weren’t sacrificed. Prowl wished that were the end of it, but she had the perspective now to see both sides of the conflict. The remaining soldiers and sailors lived, but letting them go was a delicate endeavor. No one else challenged Jazz, but they still weren’t perfectly happy, and Prowl was left feeling torn. She couldn’t see saving lives as a bad thing, but it was a much bigger imposition on the Polyhexian way of life than she’d anticipated. How many would come around if things continued to go well, and how many would resent her for meddling where she wasn’t wanted?

She also didn’t know, as they sailed away, whether or not she (or Jazz) had been recognized. The combination of hope that they hadn’t been and guilt over that hope on top of everything else made it very hard to sleep that night. 

The next cycle, Jazz ordered the raiders to move closer to Hightower and set up camps and ambush points for the next ship to come through. When it did, luck and nerve saw them take it easily. Prowl was  _ pretty  _ sure she hadn’t killed anyone, but she hadn’t actually seen where the one sailor she’d knocked from the upper levels of the rigging had landed, and had to admit it was possible he’d fallen into the water. Mako’s absence hardly meant the sharkticons had lost interest in their “share” of the raid, though it did make letting the few prisoners they’d taken go less of an ordeal. 

Unfortunately, their luck ran out after that. The first ship had limped back to Hightower, alerting the harbormaster and all outgoing ships of the pirates hiding just out of sight of the city, and the third and fourth ships came together, protecting each other with their numbers.

Prowl got the feeling, listening to her mate’s hastily revised plans, that on any normal raiding vorn she’d let this pair pass unmolested. But Rainclouds, and Jazz, were desperate, and she ordered the attack. 

This time, Jazz ordered the warriors to use alchemist fires instead of wera jars, to set fire to one of the ships. As a diversionary tactic, Prowl couldn’t fault it; it occupied the crews’ attention, enabling fewer warriors to successfully take both ships and their cargo — but not without higher costs on both sides. Forewarned that the raiders were there, Ultra Magnus had escalated, and the raiders were forced to escalate in return. 

One ship burned as a direct consequence of that escalation rather than being able to limp home. Four warriors died because of the warning Jazz’s mercy had allowed to get out.

No one held those losses, or the other injuries and damage to several kattumaram, against Prowl; even Jazz, when the others muttered against her decision, said nothing accusatory to her mate. Ricochet, remarkably, didn’t either, but Prowl suspected that was because she could see she blamed herself already. It hadn’t been intentional, but she’d changed the playing field. Letting survivors go meant letting  _ witnesses  _ go, and while that was a good thing for Praxus, it was decidedly bad for Rainclouds.

To make matters worse, whether it was the smoke from the burning ship, visible to Hightower — another change in Jazz’s MO, placing the attacks close enough to the city for the defeated sailors to limp back without starving — or the latest rounds of reports, no further ships left Hightower.

None of the Polyhexians could guess why the Prax had stopped sending ships out… but Prowl knew. “Maybe the raiders will go away” wouldn’t have been enough to hold back those ships in the past, but now Ultra Magnus  _ knew  _ when they would be gone. He knew the exact  _ cycle _ the storm season started, according to the Polyhexian calendar, and that the raiders would either be gone then, or committed to waiting out the storms without returning to the islands until the trade season.

And Rainclouds couldn’t wait.

Ultimately, Prowl was forced to reveal her insight, and her complicity, to Jazz. “Th’ships won’t start sailin’ again ’til th’storms come,” she said after yet another tetere conference on the subject. “It won’t help us t’keep waitin’.”

Jazz considered that. Next she was going to ask—

“Four should be enough,” she said heavily.

Prowl blinked. That wasn’t the question.

Ricochet was the one who voiced what both of them had obviously guessed. “Because y’told ’em we’d be gone by then.”

Trying not to cry, Prowl nodded. The cycle of seasons, something Praxans didn’t know about, had only been an interesting bit of trivia about Polyhexians when she’d discovered it. And it wasn’t like Jazz had acted like it was a secret! But now her clan — Crux and the other newlings, Wheeljack, Leaf, and… and Jazz and Ricochet and herself — was going to suffer for that bit of carelessness.

“Four’s enough,” Jazz said firmly before Ricochet could spit out any sort of accusation. She came over and hugged Prowl fiercely. “Single raidin’ party’d be lucky t’git two. We’ve got  _ four. _ ’S’more’n time t’call a retreat.”

“’M so sorry,” Prowl said, shaking in her beloved’s arms. “I didn’t even know I was throwin’ a stone, let alone how far th’ripples’d travel.”

“Me neither,” Jazz said softly. “Only a few mortals with that gift, and neither’a us is one’a ’em.”

Prowl cringed, feeling Ricochet’s  _ disapproval _ in her EM field, but then the darker twin sighed. “Aka,” she agreed. “We’re just warriors.”

They were warriors, yes, and information was a weapon. A dangerous one that Prowl, for all her training in negotiation and diplomacy, had wielded without thought. The fact that she’d cut both ways, giving Praxus new tactics and Polyhex new weapons, didn’t make it better, and the journal carefully wrapped in the bag at her hip suddenly felt like a bomb. 

She had a strong urge to burn it.

“Don’t have to  _ burn  _ it,” Sundance meowed, coming out of her blanket nest to curl up beside Prowl. She looked pretty miserable too. “Not right away, anyway. It’s safe where it is for now. You have time to think about it.”

“I should at least burn the pages with the mahere rakau.” Her notes and observations about Polyhex as a culture and how their society was organized might be dangerous in ways she couldn’t easily forsee, but the mahere rakau were  _ maps. _ Between her faithful reproductions and her meticulous notes, they would lead future invaders right to Polyhex.

“Maybe y’both need a trip t’th’island’a th’gods,” Ricochet broke in before Prowl could act on her urge. Her expression twisted. “Maybe we all do.”

Prowl looked up at her. “What’s that mean?” 

“’S’a place where y’can go talk t’th’spirits’n gods, seek judgement’n advice, even if that’s not yer power,” Ricochet said. “Can git sent, or can go.”

“Git sent… ’s th’trial by th’gods y’mentioned once, ain’t it?” Prowl turned to Jazz. “When we were negotiatin’ th’ _ contract  _ before th’ _ wedding.” _

“One’a ’em,” Jazz admitted. “When it’s advice as much as justice yer lookin’ fer.”

Prowl gave her a weak smile. “Could probably use both.”

“When we git back,” Jazz said firmly, squeezing her. “Y’are beautiful, inside’n out.” She kissed Prowl’s chevron. “Ain’t a bit’a malice in ya. Ain’t no one’ll think y’need t’be exiled.”

That was a relief, though in her current mood Prowl almost felt she deserved it. She knew that wouldn’t last though, and that wallowing in her mistake wouldn’t help make amends for it. “I agreed t’accept Polyhexian justice when I’m out here. I’ll do whatever I have ta.”

“Will. All’a us.”

“Fer now though, ’s time t’go home,” Ricochet said. 

“I’ll make th’call,” Jazz said, letting go of Prowl to stand and raise her tetere to her lips.

The music was still beautiful. 

All together for the first time outside of an attack since leaving Polyhex, Prowl watched how the warriors divvied up the spoils they’d captured. She was tempted to forgo her share, to assuage her guilt for the raids being over prematurely, but she resisted. She needed to claim her share. Her clan needed her share. 

All of the warriors from Rainclouds claimed mostly fuel. Barrels and barrels of it, midgrade meant for the crew and highgrade meant for sale at the ship’s intended destination. They took some of the other goods as well, but in significantly smaller quantities than the warriors from the other clans. Prowl didn’t understand exactly how they decided who got what, but there were obviously some unspoken conventions at work, so she sat back and kept her mouth shut.

For the most part. She did try to advocate for splitting up some of the cargo she had personally identified as worth taking from the second ship, but a lot of it wound up going to Rainclouds almost by default. Not only had one of their warriors (Prowl) been the one to bother taking the stuff in the first place, but most of the other warriors preferred to claim the jewelry and weapons they recognized over the boxes of books and bizarre looking bits of metal Prowl knew would be valuable to trade back in Hightower. 

“Just shut up’n take yer weird junk,” Ricochet told her, prompting a laugh from the others. Feeling a bit hurt, Prowl huffed and ~~sulked~~ sat back down, ostensibly playing with Sundance until Ricochet put her hand on her shoulder. “How much’ll th’Prax give us t’git that stuff back?” she asked in a voice that barely carried.

“’F ya find th’right Prax? A lot.” Those tomes were high quality, and the casting dies and other milling components were brand new. “Smokescreen’ll know who ya should barter with fer th’best results.”

“Fer a cut’a th’goods,” Ricochet chuckled, and Prowl couldn’t dispute the point. “’S worth enough y’think we’re cheatin’ everyone takin’ ’em even then though, ain’t they?”

“I— yeah.”

“Well, we ain’t. Y’told ’em everyone should take ’em an’ they didn’t want ’em, an’ we  _ need ’em,”  _ she stressed, “so leave it. ’Kay?”

When she put it that way… Prowl sighed. “’Kay.” She felt Ricochet had swept the whole issue under the rug a little quickly to keep anyone else from wanting the “weird junk” she knew wasn’t anything of the sort, but done was done, and their clan really could use the money— er, fuel they could trade the goods for.

Still, it was the sort of secrets and deceptive politics she thought she’d left behind when she’d left the court of Praxus.

Prowl listened with a pensive sort of interest to the warriors’ final discussions. They talked a little about tactics, what they’d suggest other raid leaders emulate in the future — the poison-laced wera spells were very popular, though some warriors thought they should be used alongside lobbing alchemist fires into the ship’s sails rather than instead of them — and what they thought others would be crazy to copy: Jazz’s mercy foremost.

At least it wasn’t a complete deal breaker. Though Stepper and most of the war-leaders weren’t willing to implement the same policy in any raids they undertook without her, they said they’d still follow Jazz into battle, even while she hissed that she wasn’t going to change her mind about needless killing. She had a reputation. Raids against Praxan ships she led always took at least one ship. Not many of the other war-leaders could say the same. That meant something to the warriors, and Prowl was grateful she hadn’t upset that balance as well.

Then, as soon as the meeting was over, everyone split up to sail home. Prowl was initially distressed by how abruptly things had ended, but the Bluethorn Island warriors (who stayed with the warriors from Rainclouds for a short time after) assured her that was normal. Everyone wanted their own victorious return.

“Besides,” one of their new warriors said, taking the chance to poke fun at her a little, “it’s faster t’git t’different islands usin’ different sticks.”

Prowl knocked the laughing pest into the water with a water jet.

She did pay extra attention to the movement of the kattumaram on the sea as they made their way back. The up and down motion, specifically, even though that was the most abstract thing about Polyhexian navigation to her. There was, she thought, a lot of Polyhexian timekeeping that was based off of personal experience of rhythm. She studied the stick maps she’d copied into her book, trying to understand that rhythm.

It was still incredibly tempting to pull the pages out and burn them.

Prowl was unimaginably relieved when they returned to Rainclouds to find the clan had moved back onto the island. The river was still gone (Jazz insisted it would re-establish itself eventually), so all the kattumaram were anchored in a rather disorganized way in a small inlet near a moderate stand of ohe that had survived the fire and explosions. A better place would need to be found before the storms started, she was told, and she got the feeling that they were considering physically hauling some of them up onto the island to keep them safe. 

This return wasn’t marked by a grand celebration like Jazz’s previous raids. There was no feast, and the energy was subdued. Everyone was more interested in getting the energon cached safely in the newly built huts to protect it. 

“The heck’re  _ these  _ things?” Wheeljack asked, peeking into the box of casting dies. 

“Fer trade,” Jazz said, glossing over all the details. “Prowl says th’Prax like ’em.”

“Yeah? Huh. Prax’re weird.”

Prowl rolled her optics and didn’t comment.

“Prowl!” Bracing herself just in time, Prowl managed not to go down when Crux landed on/against her. “Yer back!”

“Am,” Prowl said fondly, pressing her helm into Crux’s shoulder. “Gimme m’arms back’n I’ll hug ya.”

“Don’t wanna,” she whined, but wiggled anyway so that Prowl could wrap her arms around her, and purred when Prowl squeezed.

Jazz grinned at them both. “That didn’t take long.”

Behind Crux’s back where she couldn’t see, Prowl copied the rude gesture she’d seen Jazz and others make occasionally. Ricochet burst out laughing while Jazz adopted a look of scandalous delight.

“So how burnt up is everything?” Prowl asked when Crux finally relaxed her hold. “Did any’a th’fields survive?”

“Didn’t,” Crux said sadly. “Th’dirt crystals were th’only ones not near the village, but they weren’t far enough away. I  _ liked _ those fields! They were fun.”

“There’ll be new ones,” Jazz promised with a comforting pat. 

“I know, but I liked  _ those  _ fields.”

“Y’will like th’new fields too,” Prowl assured.

“Yeah, maybe… oh!” Crux bounced on her heels. “Me’n Kindle found a thing! Leaf thought it was a good thing and says we should look fer more’a ’em. Wanna see?”

Jazz was giving her a gentle push before she could even ask. “There’s time,” she said. “Go ahead’n look around. Won’t leave without ya.”

“We leavin’ soon then?”

“Ish.” 

Ish. Of course. Turning to Crux, Prowl nodded. “Yeah, I wanna see.”

Giving her a big grin, Crux transformed and took off, spraying sand and rocks and crystals everywhere as she momentarily lost control of her momentum on the loose ground. Then she crashed into an ohe stalk.

It didn’t seem to bother her.

Prowl took off her necklaces, transformed, and followed with much more control. She’d gotten in a good amount of driving both on- and off-road her last vorn in Praxus. The exact texture of the rock beneath her tires was new, but the type of traction wasn’t.

“Y’gonna tell me anything about it b’fore we git there?” 

“Nope!” Crux called back, giggling.

“Pest!” Prowl revved her engine to “give chase”, accelerating after Crux until she just nudged her bumper.

“Eeek!” Gravel sprayed out from under Crux’s tires as she leaped forward in surprise. And ran right through another ohe pole before she remembered to pay attention to what was in front of her.

If the obstacles around them weren’t so minor, Prowl wouldn’t have kept doing it. Since Crux couldn’t really hurt herself, however, she continued to drive playfully, encouraging Crux to practice different techniques. She wasn’t so much a bad driver as a very new one, but she was learning quickly.

One thing she clearly  _ had _ practiced was a tumble out of alt, vault up onto the new edge of the flow, then collapse back onto her tires, because it did look very impressive. She spun around to watch Prowl when she completed it, clearly expecting accolades for the maneuver.

“Wow!” Prowl indulged her, slowing so they could talk more easily. “How’d ya learn t’do that?”

Crux flicked her doors. “It was  _ very _ difficult!”

Aware of how this game was played, Prowl turned and drove alongside the edge of the flow while Crux drove on it, spinning wilder and wilder tales about how she’d learned to perform her new trick! Then she started encouraging Prowl to try it, promising to “share her wisdom” when she inevitably failed.

Prowl wasn’t entirely sure she  _ would  _ fail if she tried it, actually, but that was where she drew the line. “’S a great move, but I don’t need it right now.”

_ Sulk. _

“Aww, come on!” If Prowl hadn’t been in alt mode, she would have grinned. “I didn’t say it wasn’t still cool when ya do it.”

“Whatever. We’re here!” Crux swerved further onto the flow and— disappeared!

“Crux?” Prowl turned and hopped the change in height between the old and the new rock.  _ Oh!  _ It was still warm! She hadn’t noticed the heat driving beside the flow, but it was definitely there now that she was up on it. 

“In here!” 

Her voice echoed, and Prowl swerved around until she saw… a hole? “What is it?” she called into it, edging up to the entrance. It was large enough to drive through comfortably, but she couldn’t tell if it widened or narrowed farther in. And it was dark.

“Isn’t it cool?” Crux called from inside. “It’s a,” Prowl automatically broke down the compound Polyhexian word into  _ fire-riverbed. _ “Leaf says if we find one that won’t flood, we’ll move th’food inta it ’til th’end’a th’storm season.”

“Yeah? They’re big enough fer that?” Crux sounded like she was a fair distance down the… tunnel? So Prowl paused long enough to cycle through a transformation to cast a light spell and then drove slowly beneath the ground.

It was a tunnel. A rather big tunnel. Not as big as the river tunnel leading to the hot spot on Harvest Island, but otherwise very similar. They had probably been made the same way. Glossy black rock gleamed, a near-perfect ring of reflected light, outlining walls that were almost perfectly circular, and the Polyhexian word conjured an image of the whole thing filled with the molten rock. Prowl didn’t think it was a very encouraging image, but it also looked like the perfect place to get out of the weather. 

If, you know, it didn’t flood.

“It goes on fer a while.” Crux suddenly loomed at the edge of the light spell.

“Oh!” Prowl drew up short, stopping more abruptly than she needed to. “Does it come up anywhere else?”

“Yeah. There’s a hole farther up that comes out on th’flow.”

“How far?”

“Dunno. A while.” Crux U-turned and sped down the tunnel, swerving back and forth to drive partially up the walls.

Prowl stayed on the ground, sticking to the same speed so she could properly estimate how long the tunnel was. “A while” indeed; and there was another of the problems of Polyhexian time units, the conflation between distance and time.

The light up ahead was a relief when it appeared. It looked like a fissure had formed and cracked the brittle rock, strewing rubble across the ground and letting in daylight. Crux transformed and scrambled up the side of the cave to wiggle out onto the flow. The rock was loose and shifted easily, but Prowl was able to follow her without claws back to the surface, where—

“Oh! ’S like th’waves just froze.”

Crux grinned. “Zephyr says Keahi makes th’rock so hot, it merges with th’fire’n becomes water.”

It certainly looked like it had behaved as water. With the flow extending out around them in every direction, Prowl got a strong impression of being out at sea. The solid rock formations rolled and swirled around each other across the ground, creating a sense of movement where there wasn’t really any. A rhythm, frozen in time. “I’ll believe it.”

“Race ya back?”

“Race?” Prowl grinned. “Y’think y’can beat me?”

“Can!” And without so much as lining up so they had the same starting point, Crux transformed and took off.

“Hey!” Prowl scrambled clear of the hole down into the tunnel and transformed as well, speeding out over the warm rock after the whooping newling.

The flow wasn’t flat, but it was fairly even. They drove up and over and around the frozen eddies, the lack of obstacles and distractions helping Crux keep her lead for a good distance. Her only problem was that she weaved more than necessary — for the fun of it, if Prowl had to guess — and eventually fell behind after a series of slaloms she got a little carried away with.

“Still think y’can beat me?” Prowl called.

Crux’s engine growled louder than necessary as her path evened out and she sped to catch up. Prowl laughed and kept going, sailing over the black rock smoothly until—

**_BAM!_ **

At first she didn’t even realize it was her own tire that had gone out. Then the pain registered, flaring through her neural net, and she screamed. She listed sideways as she slowed, shifting her weight off the injured tire.

“Prowl!” Crux swerved around transformed, leaping for Prowl barely in time to catch her as she fell out of alt mode, shaking. “Prowl! What happened? Are you okay?”

“Dunnoooo,” Prowl whined, trying to think what she could have possibly hit. There hadn’t been any sort of bump or irregularity in the rock, so what had happened? “’S m’tire. It just… popped.” And now that she was starting to feel past the initial pain of the injury, she noticed, “M’others’re hurtin’ too.”

Crux looked panicked, glancing forward and back like she wasn’t sure what to do with the only adult nearby incapacitated. “Um… Let’s git off th’flow an’ back t’th’others.”

“Good— oww! Plan,” Prowl said, comparing the distance they’d covered with their race against the drive through the tunnel. Rough approximate though it was, it gave her hope that they weren’t too far away now. Forcing herself back onto her remaining tires, she set out with determination.

Said remaining tires felt tight as she kept going, but she didn’t know which would be worse: speeding up or slowing down. She wanted to get off them entirely, but even driving slowly would get them off the flow faster than walking. In addition, the section they were driving over wasn’t just warm, it was  _ hot  _ — hot enough that the rubber she smelled burning was probably her own.

Crux buzzed around worriedly, switching forms to keep up, then check on Prowl, then speed ahead. She didn’t even seem to notice the heat.

“Thank  _ Primus,”  _ Prowl moaned when the edge of the flow came into sight. The heat dropped off by degrees the closer they got to it, and she was at least confident she wasn’t actually on fire when she tumbled over and out of alt mode to land curled up on her right side, clutching at her left shoulder.

Crux made a strange cheeping sound. “Let’s git t’th’others.”

“Working on it!” Transforming had taken the weight off the tattered, scorched rubber, but it still hurt. It hurt a lot, and Prowl held out a shaky hand. “Help me stand up?”

The newling flitted over to support Prowl as she stood.

Fortunately, walking did get easier as they made their way back to the makeshift village. The sharp, incapacitating pain faded to a dull ache, only throbbing hard enough to make her gasp if she accidentally bumped too hard against Crux or a stalk of ohe slapped against her tires.

Jazz practically teleported to her side when she saw her, already headed their way when they arrived.  _ Concern  _ swirled in response to her  _ pain. _ “Prowl!” Soothing fingers petted over her plating, assessing and comforting simultaneously. “Come on, sit. Crux, go git bandage weeds.”

Looking relieved, the newling nodded and ran off.

“Dunno what happened,” Prowl said, gratefully letting Jazz ease her to the ground. “Were out on th’flow’n suddenly m’tire went out.”

“Looks like y’were fire racin’n drove over a patch that was too hot.” Jazz carefully checked over the blown out tire, then probed her other tires. They ached, but didn’t feel like they were melting anymore.

“But we drove over th’same patches.” They’d been only a couple frame-lengths apart when the trouble started, and over the worst of the heat on the way back, Prowl had been following in Crux’s tracks. “She’s fine.”

“Didn’t drive over a patch that was still glowing?”

“That’s a thing?!” Prowl squeaked. “No!”

“Shh… I believe ya.” Jazz checked the blown out tire again. “Yer not bleedin’ ’ere.” She picked at some of the rubber left behind.

“Ow!”

“Th’frag’s wrong now?” Ricochet asked, coming onto the scene with a scowl. “Y’really gotta stop runnin’ off mid— oh. Actually is somethin’, ain’t it?”

“I’m sorry, beautiful, but we gotta clean th’old rubber out.” Jazz picked out another trailing shred. 

“Ow!” Yes, fine, that made sense, but Prowl couldn’t help flinching. “What’m I supposed t’do? Prax don’t regrow tires,” she said, poking at Jazz’s leg where her own busted tire was already beginning to reform.

“Leaf or Zephyr’ll cast a healing spell…” 

“That don’t help ’em regro—”

“What the frag happened to you?” Ricochet was interrupted by Sundance darting out of the brush with a demanding yowl. 

“Drove out onto hot rock, I guess,” Prowl meowed, reaching for her familiar. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

Cuddling the cat to her chest helped her sit still while Jazz picked out the remaining rubber. 

“Y’got thin tires,  _ princess,” _ Ricochet remarked, rubbing one of the larger pieces between her claws.

“She’s fine,” Jazz defended, bandaging it carefully when Crux arrived with the supplies, Leaf already in tow.

It hadn’t sounded like a jab to Prowl though; more like an honest observation. “Do I really?”

“Eh.” Ricochet shrugged. “Feels thin.” 

Crux hovered worriedly while Leaf cast the healing spell. Immediately the pain went away, but the tire itself didn’t spontaneously regrow. “Can’t make th’new one come in faster,” she said. “Ain’t in m’power.”

“Can y’do without fer a season?” Jazz asked worriedly. “We’ll be goin t’Hightower fer th’harvest season. Can git it fixed then?”

Prowl considered. An entire season was a long time to be missing a tire, but there were two important factors to consider: one, she could still drive on three in an emergency, and two, she’d barely used her alt mode since coming to Polyhex, and that wasn’t likely to change. “Think I can, yeah,” she said. “Ain’t like I need ’em t’swim’r climb.”

“Ain’t.” Jazz hugged her, fiercely.

“Crisis over now?” Ricochet drawled, back to sounding irritated.

“’M fine,” Prowl said, then repeated herself to a concerned Sundance. “I’m fine. Everyone will just look at me funny when I come back lopsided.”

“Pfft. They’ll look at you funny for more than that,” Sundance snorted, wriggling up her chest to settle on her shoulder above the missing tire and begin purring. Loudly.

“Fair enough.”

Thanks to Leaf’s magic, there weren’t any injuries left that needed to be wrapped to heal, but Jazz still made a neat package of the empty wheel well. “T’keep things from gettin’ lodged in there,” she explained, tucking in the end of a weed where it wouldn’t come loose and Sundance couldn’t paw at it. “’S still a good idea t’protect it, even without a new tire comin’ in fragile t’start.”

“An’ I don’t have t’right armor t’cover th’gap.” Jazz had pieces like oversized hubcaps she wore over her lower wheels, one of which was currently covering the thin ring of new rubber coming in, even though she’d taken off the rest of her armor, but the pieces they’d cobbled together for Prowl didn’t include shoulder pauldrons shaped to her frame. 

“Not yet,” Jazz said, promise sparkling in her visor that she would get her All The Things just as soon as she had the opportunity. “Y’good t’sail?” she asked after the last weed was in place. “Wheeljack said he’d oversee our journey t’speak t’th’gods.”

Ah. And suddenly “soonish” was “now”. They hadn’t even slept since they’d arrived! Then again, they also hadn’t eaten, and it made more sense to leave and fend for themselves than draw on the critically important food stores, even if there wasn’t somewhere they had to be. “Good t’sail,” Prowl said. “We need a  _ witness,  _ huh?”

Jazz and Ricochet exchanged a look, puzzling through the Praxan word and how it fit in context. Jazz, having the slightly larger vocabulary, answered. “Ain’t gonna watch. Gonna…” she trailed off, struggling to explain. “Priest-mage things.”

“’Kay.” In other words, she’d just have to watch and see. “Uh, Jazz? Kinda gotta let me up if we’re gonna go anywhere.”

Reluctantly, and petting Prowl’s plating as she did so, Jazz released her from the hug and stood.

“Are ya really leavin’ already?” Crux asked, still fidgeting nervously nearby. “Y’only just got ’ere, an’ y’got hurt.”

“Hey. C’mere.” Prowl pulled the newling into a hug. “Leaf made it better, just like she’n Wheeljack did fer ya when th’gympie stung ya. Ain’t hurtin’ no more, an’ never was mad at ya ’bout it. Got it?”

“Promise?”

“Promise.” Impulsively, Prowl kissed the top of her head. “Thanks fer showin’ me th’fire-riverbed.”

“I’ll find more?”

“Can show me when we get back.” Prowl let her go. “Thanks fer th’spell, Leaf.”

Leaf hugged her. “Yer findin’ yer place,” she said warmly. “Yer gonna grow inta a good clan warrior.”

_ I want to.  _ “Will,” Prowl said confidently, stomping down her doubts. They stemmed from her guilt, and though she’d never been religious, there was something comforting about the idea of appealing to the gods for guidance on where to go from here.

Wheeljack was already waiting where they’d left the kattumaram. He hugged her too. “Yer gonna be fine.”

“Have ya ever done it? Any’a ya ever done it before?” A trial, by nature, was meant to be arduous, but that was subjective to a degree. “’M I allowed t’know what t’expect?”

“Ish.” Wheeljack helped them launch the boat, splashing as they pushed it through the surf. The movement stirred up the ashy sand under their feet, but the water was nowhere near as cloudy as it had been before. “Gonna give ya a spell t’help ya, then y’will go talk t’th’gods. ’S’different fer everyone.” 

“Do we all go together, or alone?” Prowl jumped up and climbed onto the deck when they were out far enough, grabbing an oar along with Ricochet while Jazz went to the sail.

“Th’three’a y’can go at th’same time, but y’ain’t really supposed t’go together. What happens on th’island’s between elua,” he glanced between Prowl and Sundance, “an’ th’gods.” 

“Food first,” Jazz interrupted. “Ain’t s’posed t’hunt on th’island’a th’gods.”

“Fishin’?” Net or harpoon?

“’S a new mat’a weeds growin’ in’ th’ash up that way,” Wheeljack pointed. “Kina’re  _ real  _ thick in ’em.”

“Sounds good.” Jazz turned the sail that way.

As they approached, Prowl saw immediately what Wheeljack was talking about. The fast growing rubber weed had rooted in the grey ash, covering it like a multicolored carpet. She was immensely glad to see it. The last time she’d seen the ash settling in the reef, she’d thought it looked dead, and now there was once again life. Not just the weeds themselves, but the creatures buried in them, including the purple kina feeding voraciously.

“Nice,” Ricochet purred, dipping her oar into the weeds to lift up a tangle of them. “Grab a basket’n fill it!”

Prowl already had the basket in her hand.

She got stung harvesting the things. It made her feel a bit sick, but nothing like what they’d done to her in the beginning. Wheeljack offered to neutralize the poison once they were done lifting up weeds and she was less likely to just get stung again, and she was happy to take advantage of that so she could actually eat.

Jazz split the kina’s shell open with her twist-pry knife and scooped out the orange paste-like creature inside. She offered it to Prowl with a hopeful smile, while Ricochet scoffed. “What? Ain’t like I didn’t do th’work for ’em,” Prowl said, and let Jazz feed her. She even fed Jazz back. And unlike the first time she’d tried this, the edge of nervousness over encouraging Jazz’s advances wasn’t there. Now she very much wanted to encourage Jazz’s advances, no nervousness required.

Later. Later, when they were back on the island, and they could find someplace with a semblance of seclusion, she would encourage her to do all the things. It had been long enough; she was tempted to forego waiting and just do all the things now, but with both Ricochet and Wheeljack on the boat, the blanket didn’t feel like enough of a barrier. Especially not with Ricochet making snide comments, and Jazz making rude gestures at her twin. Wheeljack chuckled at the byplay.

They ate their fill and moved on. They weren’t going back to Rainclouds immediately, so they left the remaining kina in peace, rather than gather them up to bring back.

“How many sunrises ’til we get there?” Prowl asked Jazz, sitting beside her at the edge of the deck while Ricochet took a turn at the sail.

“In this wind? Three’r four.”

“Less if th’wind shifts at night,” Ricochet put in. 

Prowl knew wind often changed direction at night, or changed in other ways, especially near land or islands. That had been part of Jazz’s navigation lesson, one of the ways you could tell if you were getting close. “’Kay.” She snuggled in closer to Jazz, thoughts pinging around in her head. “Did ya tell anyone?” she asked quietly. “Why we’re doin’ this?”

“Told Wheeljack. Otherwise it’s yers t’tell — if th’gods’n yer spark say y’need ta.”

Prowl nodded. Sometimes telling everyone the truth of something like that did more harm than good. Just one more thing on a growing list of things she needed to decide how to handle. “Didn’t expect things t’suddenly git so complicated with th’new season.”

“Storm season’ll be simpler,” Wheeljack put in cheerfully. He was crouched near the bow of the kattumaram, watching the water split around the hulls into two wakes. “Hide from th’lightnin’n try not t’starve, nothin’ simpler.”

“Uh huh.” Prowl frowned. “I can’t tell if yer under’r oversellin’ it.”

“Neither. He’s just wrong.” Ricochet’s voice was sharp and almost mocking. “After th’fires stop, y’gotta worry more ’bout wind’n storm swells than lightnin’.”

“Really. Wonderful.” She really wasn’t going to like these storms, was she? The first time she’d heard Jazz’s descriptions, she’d attributed the more fantastical elements to her love’s penchant for exaggeration. In the last vorn, she’d learned there were some things that simply couldn’t be exaggerated  _ enough. _

“Come sleep with me?” Jazz nudged Prowl. “Always sleep better when yer with me.”

“So do I.” Prowl smiled and stood, leading the way over to the sleeping hull. Within nanokliks she had Jazz laying on top of her and Sundance curled up in the space between her head and left shoulder. The cat pressed her face against Prowl’s cheek and collar faring before tucking her nose beneath her tail to sleep. And purr. 

Prowl half expected Wheeljack to pile in on top of them, but he didn’t. She let the peaceful mood lure her to sleep.

The next few sunrises passed in a blur. Jazz took the time to let Prowl practice how to handle the kattumaram, which she’d gotten somewhat better at during the sail from the raid on Praxus. Otherwise they entertained themselves however they could on such a small boat. It felt strange, to Prowl, to be playing games while being transported to a trial. A voluntary trial, which was a strange concept itself.

If Jazz or Ricochet were nervous about whatever was coming, it didn’t show. Even when the island finally came into view, first as nothing more than a dark smudge on the horizon, then as a lush collection of relatively low peaks, they both remained calm and focused. Prowl, meanwhile, was dealing with an increasingly potent mix of curiosity and anticipation. Would it be dangerous? Would it be helpful? Would being Praxan interfere with it somehow?

“We’ll know soon enough,” Sundance pointed out, batting at the end of the rope Prowl was twisting restlessly in her hands. 

Somehow, this island was even more overgrown than either Rainclouds or Harvest, its shores so thick with bakau crystals that they couldn’t land the boat on sand. Instead they anchored the kattumaram just offshore. Jazz set the nijan traps, indicating to Prowl they would be here a while. 

“Prowl?” Wheeljack called, patting the deck beside him when she turned and found him at the edge of the kattumaram, facing the island. “Y’wanna go first?”

“Sure.” Waiting would just let her work herself up over it more. She set down the rope and went over, followed by Sundance after one last swat at the no-longer-moving toy. “What do I do?”

“Here.” He pressed a glitchmouse capsule into her hands. “Elua’re gonna go talk t’th’gods. This’ll make it easier fer ya t’see ’em, but blurs what’s really there. Yer gonna have t’trust yer spirit t’keep ya safe.”

“No huntin’,” Jazz reminded, and Wheeljack nodded.

“Yer a warrior, so yer gonna take yer weapons, but y’can’t hunt, can’t eat anythin’ on this island.”

“’Kay.” Prowl looked at the capsule. “Do I use this now, or after I git t’shore?”

“Now.” Wheeljack stroked her comfortingly. “Then yer gonna need t’swim.”

“Weeeeeeet,” Sundance complained.

“Let’s hope wet is the worst of what’s about to happen,” Prowl said to her while the others laughed. “’Kay. I’m goin’.” She brought the capsule to her lips and swallowed it. The liquid inside was bitter, tasting of rust and rubber, and faintly gritty like sand. Prowl didn’t feel any initial effect, but she didn’t wait. With one quick push, she dropped down into the water. 

“Wet,” Sundance meowed again, but gamely jumped in after her.

The water wasn’t very deep. Prowl didn’t have to swim far before there were thick bakau roots under her feet, and she was able to climb up onto the ones growing above the water easily. Sundance shook the water from her plating and sniffed the crystal curiously. 

“Just trees?” Prowl guessed. “Go talk to the gods” was a pretty vague instruction, one she’d taken to essentially mean “wander until something happens”. Hopefully something would; she didn’t know what she’d do otherwise. 

“Just trees,” Sundance confirmed. Instead of scampering away to explore like she often would, she turned back to twine around Prowl’s feet. “We should get on real ground.”

“If we can find it!” The trees seemed to just go on forever. Prowl picked a direction and worked slowly inland, trusting that eventually they had to run out of water.

The branches of the bakau slowly gave way to ohe stalks. Prowl stumbled a bit over the transition to real ground as the thin, dried-up roots at the edge of the grove crumbled under her weight, but didn’t fall. “Huh.” She tested the ground with the front of her foot. “Does it feel spongy to you?” It almost flexed and sprang back as she stepped on it, but only when she was looking at it. “Weird.” 

“You think anyone would mind if I took just  _ one _ glitchmouse?” Sundance meowed, looking around curiously. “Maybe the gods are in the mouse burrows.”

“If they are I’m going to have a hard time talking to them. I won’t fit in the burrows.” Prowl reached down and stroked along Sundance’s back. “Leave the glitchmice alone.”

“Fine.” 

The ground seemed to get spongier as they walked. Crystal branches twisted and curled and snatched at her armor. The birdcalls echoed oddly, turning sounds that had become familiar strange again.

“Prowl?”

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” She actually really would like to know, because while she could  _ see  _ the curtains of solid sunlight where they broke through the forest canopy above, it didn’t feel like her fingers were touching anything when she tried to brush them aside.

“Waving your hands in the air?” Sundance reached out her nose and sniffed the sunlight, then slipped inside of it. “Is there something here?”

“You can’t feel the curtains? You’re standing right in them.”

“It’s sunlight. Are we looking for sunlight?” She batted at the curtains and they moved aside for her. 

“I don’t know.” They were supposed to be looking for the gods, but Prowl had no idea what the gods would look like. It didn’t help that the Polyhexian gods tended to have more than one form, to look like or be mechanimals, mechs, or anything in between. The sunlight  _ could _ be a god, but, “I think… I think it’s probably just sunlight.”

Sundance batted at the air again, and once again the curtain moved. The cat came back to twine around Prowl’s feet affectionately, then sauntered through the sunlight, pushing it aside for Prowl.

“Thank you.” 

Bizarrely, once she got past the curtains, they seemed to disappear. The sunlight was just sunlight again, though the forest wasn’t any less alive. The crystals lit up with colors as the birds continued to call, and Prowl couldn’t stop looking around, trying to identify the sounds.

Not looking where she was going, she was surprised when the forest suddenly gave way to the dark rock of the flow. 

“Prowl?”

“It’s okay as long as it doesn’t get hot,” Prowl said, looking around carefully for any glowing patches to avoid. “If it starts to hurt your feet, get up on my shoulder.”

“Tell me where we’re going, and I’ll lead you there,” the cat counteroffered.

Where was she going? She heard turbodogs barking out on the flow. 

“That way,” she decided after a moment, pointing toward the sound. Turbodogs meant a village, people, were nearby. She started to walk forward, then hesitated. The ground wasn’t hot, but it wasn’t  _ right  _ either. Wheeljack had told her to trust her spirit. Maybe it was a good idea to let her lead after all. “I’ll follow you.”

The cat weaved and swerved oddly as she walked across the rippled flow. Trust her. Prowl followed in her footsteps. Occasionally she felt something brush against her doors or shoulders, things she couldn’t see but began to suspect Sundance could. How? What was happening?

What were the hounds barking at?

“Get away!” she was close enough to hear one of them call as he barked. “Thief!” 

A kokako’s laugh answered.

“Go away!” the pack yapped back.

Prowl finally saw them. They were chasing a flock of the clever birds, guarding something at the center of the flow, the frozen eddies swirling around like a whirlpool.

Sundance kept walking right past them, but Prowl slowed. “D’ya want me t’help chase ’em away?”

“Huh?”

“What is it?” the dogs barked. One of them ran over, and Prowl realized just how  _ big _ this dog was compared to the village turbohounds. He was as big as she was! “It’s a mech!”

“Femme!” one of the other pack called.

“Femme,” the one agreed. “It doesn’t smell like fire though.”

“Who cares if it smells like fire, if it can chase off these,” the dog jumped up and bit one of the laughing kokako.

“Prowl, what are you— hey!” Sundance flattened herself against the ground as Prowl started sending stinging balls of light at the pesky kokako. Some of them seemed to hit their targets, while others burst into sparkles where they ran into nothing. 

“Go away!” Prowl called to the birds. “Or I’ll use somethin’ stronger.”

They called and laughed, then squawked when they got hit. Slowly the flock dispersed, grumbling at being forced to abandon their treasure. Sundance grumbled too, as she shook herself and got back to her feet. “Flinging spells around like that. What did the trees ever do to you?”

Trees? What trees?

“So what’s this?” One of the turbodogs came over and nudged Prowl’s head with its nose, rocking her in place. “It doesn’t smell like it has a fire-spark. Should we eat it?”

“No. It’s a  _ femme. _ We like femmes!”

“Does it have treats?”

“I… dunno?” Prowl wasn’t carrying any food, per se, but some of her spell components were technically edible. Would something as big as they were have any interest in hexbugs? “Got bugs.”

“I like bugs!” Another, younger-seeming turbodog, brass plating  _ gleaming _ in the sun, bounded over. It too was big enough to eat her whole arm in one bite if it wanted to. 

“Lemme get ’em out,” she said, digging them out quickly before any of them could wonder how she tasted. At least they seemed generally friendly? Playful and curious, rather than vicious. “Here.” She poured out some of the hexbugs from their jar into her palm and held her hand up bravely. 

_ LLIIICK! _

And now she was covered in dog slobber.

“Heeeyyy, where’d they go?” Sundance meowed, peering intently at Prowl’s empty hand.

“The hound ate them,” Prowl reported, fluttering her doors in an attempt to shed some of the drool as she looked up. “Can I ask ya a question?”

“Is this a riddle?” one with slightly reddish and gold spots on its plating asked, sitting down to scratch its audial flaps. “Because we don’t do riddles. If you want a riddle, you should have talked to the kokako.”

“Ain’t a riddle,” Prowl promised. “I’m just not sure where I’m goin’ and was wonderin’ if ya could help me.”

“Sure. I suppose,” the itchy one said. “As long as we don’t need to go anywhere. We’re supposed to stay here, guarding the thing.”

“’Course.” She wasn’t going to take them away from their task. “Can just point me in th’right direction, if y’know where I can find th’gods.”

The whole pack set off yapping and laughing. “Maybe be more specific?”

Prowl’s field flushed with embarrassment. She should have thought of that. The problem was, “I dunno which ones ’m supposed t’see. I… I did somethin’ that hurt m’clan by accident.”

The biggest turbodog, whose head towered above Prowl’s, nudged its younger packmates away and came to lay down in front of her so they were at optic level. Optic band. “Yeah? You want to talk about it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” It was a little scary admitting her mistake to the incredible creature, but it was a relief as well. “’M from Praxus, an’ when Jazz— my mate first took me, I didn’t know which things she taught me needed t’stay a secret. Still don’t know, actually, with a lotta it, but I didn’t imagine talkin’ ’bout th’weather an’ th’seasons’d be bad at all, only it was. I told th’Prax when th’storm season starts, an’ now they’re makin’ it hard fer m’clan t’raid th’ships they need t’survive.”

“What’s a Praxus?” the youngest yapped from behind her, but was shushed by the others. 

The big, older turbodog sat up and scratched as it thought. “Well I don’t think that’s something we can give you advice on,” it finally admitted. “You need to talk to the sharkticon god. He deals with the border between here and other places. That means you should go to the water. He doesn’t have anything to do with land-matters.”

_ Eep. _ She needed to find Carcharhinidae himself? Trembling slightly, Prowl nodded. “Which way’s th’water?”

“Should it go to the ocean or the lake?” the itchy turbodog asked.

“Or the river?” 

“Definitely the ocean. That’s where all the sharkticons are, right?”

“Not all of them.”

“The lake,” the big pack leader said firmly. “I heard the kokako gossiping that he was there right now.”

“Then that’s where I’ll go.” Prowl bowed her head. “Thank ya.”

“You’re welcome.” It nudged her with its massive nose. “Don’t get eaten.”

“I’ll try not ta.” She certainly didn’t want to get eaten. Slowly, in case it didn’t want her to, Prowl reached up and stroked the enormous hound’s muzzle. “Good luck guardin’ yer treasure.”

“Those kokako better not come back or we’ll eat them,” the youngest said, rolling onto its back to wiggle on the flow. 

Prowl giggled. “Ain’t gonna stop ’em.” Nothing, not even the threat of death, could stop a kokako’s curiosity. “Sundance?”

“Here.” She rubbed against Prowl’s ankle. “You okay?”

“I’m okay. Ish. I’m scared,” she admitted. “They said I need to find the lake and talk to the sharkticon god.”

“There’s some water this way.” Sundance turned, her ears perking up as she sniffed and listened. “It doesn’t smell much like a  _ lake _ though.”

“But it’s not the way we came either, is it?”

“No.” Her tail lashed. “It’s uphill.”

“Then let’s check it out.” She glanced back at the hounds, and saw one of them nod. “They think it’s the right way to go.”

“Alright. Follow me.” Sundance slunk away, weaving around things in the flow that Prowl couldn’t see. She followed in her footsteps, heading back to the forest in the distance until the trees were suddenly all around them.

Behind them, Prowl heard a roar. Looking back, she saw an enormous red dragon land at the center of the flow. “Ohhh…” It dwarfed the giant dogs as they gathered around it, dancing and yipping eagerly. “Primus.”

No. Not Primus. Those were  _ hounds. _

_ Keahi! _

Remembering the great explosions of fire that had ruined Rainclouds, Prowl trembled where she stood. But the dragon had no interest in her at all. It didn’t even look her direction. The only thing it paid any attention to was the treasure the hounds had been guarding and the hounds themselves. Smoke streamed lazily from its nostrils, and wings larger than any kattumaram sail  _ whooshed  _ hot air across the flow as they flapped and settled. Giant flame-red claws that had rent gouges in the solid black rock curled around the treasure, lifting it to examine it without marring it in the slightest. Its chuff of pleasure streamed flamelets over wickedly sharp teeth.

Beautiful and terrible; Prowl finally saw what Jazz had been talking about. 

“—rowl. Prowl!” Something bumped her foot and Prowl’s gaze snapped downward to find Sundance pawing at her. “I’ll use my claws if I have to,” she warned.

“Don’t have to,” Prowl said, turning away from the flow, then pausing to look again. “But I wish you could see the dragon.”

“Aren’t dragons supposed to be scary?”

Prowl laughed, because Keahi most definitely was that. And yet, it was hard to tear her optics away. In this form, the goddess was a majestic, spectacular embodiment of the power she wielded. The dragon’s scales rippled with all the colors of the molten rock beneath the mountain, giving the impression of barely-contained fire. They  _ glowed  _ with each breath, pulsing between cooler dark reds and vibrant yellow-oranges that seemed to seep out of armor seams in curls of visible heat. Wavering ribbons of light followed those flares as the dragon moved, dancing off wingtips and sparkling around its optics. Yet for all the goddess’s power and dangerous, alien beauty, there was something distinctly Polyhexian about the creature. Prowl almost swore she could see lightning-flickers of necklaces of pearls and bracelets of shells, or a fluttering ash-and-gold sarong and hikurere dancing in the flames.

She nuzzled her hounds fondly, love of them visible in the intimate gesture.

Entranced as she was, a corner of Prowl’s processor remembered that it was Carcharhinidae she needed to find. Sundance’s insistent paws nudged that thought forward until she was able to act on it, physically wrenching herself around to put the flow, and the goddess, at her back.

For a nanoklik she could still feel the heat on her doors. Then it was gone, and when she looked back, there were only trees.

She didn’t know how long she followed Sundance through the forest after that. Shapes and shadows loomed and shifted strangely, while sounds twisted, warped and magnified. At one point Prowl actually had to stop, clutching her audios trying to block some of it out.  _ Everything _ was talking. The birds. The fish. The bugs crawling through the crumbling crystal leaf litter. She half-thought she  _ understood  _ the cheeps and rustles and squawks, so many words it was dizzying. Then the next klik everything was so quiet her own systems roared in the silence.

“If this wasn’t already so disorienting, I’d be tempted to cast mage sight,” she said when she’d recovered. 

Sundance snickered.

Fortunately for Prowl’s sanity, it wasn’t long after that when Sundance announced, “Here. The water’s here.” She ran ahead a bit, then stopped. “It  _ looks _ like a lake.”

“Not to me.” Prowl stared out across what appeared to be open sea. “I can’t see anything on the other side, and it smells like rust and salt.”

“So now that we’re at the water, what do we do?”

“I… don’t know.” She stepped up to the edge of the lake/sea, letting the water flow up over her feet. It felt calm. Much calmer than the ocean usually was. “Maybe I’m supposed to go out in it?”

“Why is it always  _ swimming _ with your vision quests?” the cat complained, but gamely followed her in. 

The shore dropped away sharply. It felt like she hadn’t swum very far at all, but when Prowl looked back, the trees were a good distance away. She’d swum all the way out to the reef.

Only there was no reef. Instead there were thousands,  _ millions, _ of ghostlike kakaru all around her.

“Oh no!” She tried to avoid bumping into them, but it was impossible. The water was so thick with them the only way to move was to push them out of the way, and Prowl flinched every time one of their soft bodies brushed against her plating until she realized that these didn’t sting. 

Much. There were a couple of sensitive places along her doors where it hurt a little, but she was able to cover most of them by folding the panels back so the kakaru couldn’t reach them. Ignoring the slight stings, she dove under the water briefly, just so she could see them all, floating in the water. There were so many! Not quite it-looks-like-you-can-walk-on-them, but too many to count.

Sundance bopped her on the head, and Prowl came back up to paddle on the surface.

“Don’t  _ do _ that,” the cat scolded. 

Trust your spirit. “Right. Won’t.” 

That didn’t stop Prowl from looking down to continue watching the kakaru as they pulsed through the water. They swirled through the endless red like so many grains of sand, but the longer she watched, the more she noticed there was a pattern. They were going west, following the sun.

It was only because she was watching the kakaru that she saw the great shape gliding through the water below them. It looked like a fish, but it was so far away.

“Can you see it?” she asked Sundance, turning in place to follow its slow progression. “The shadow down there?”

The cat stuck her head into the water, then came up with a sputter. “A little.”

“I think…” It was hard to be sure, but, “I think it’s coming closer.” 

It stayed hard to tell right up until it practically lunged up out of the depths directly under them, breaking the surface and devouring a huge swathe of the kakaru in a single swallow. Prowl tumbled across its back, screaming as she tried to grasp the toothed plating of the massive beast. What would have been like a fine layer of sharp grains of sand on most sharkticons was a forest of speartips on this one. Scrabbling for purchase, every handhold she reached for sliced into her hands like glass knives. Unable to get a grip, she kept falling along the sharp plating until it resubmerged, leaving her struggling to stay at the surface.

“Sundance?” Had the creature swallowed her familiar along with the kakaru? “Sundance!”

“Here!” the cat meowed immediately, pushing herself against her chest. “I’m right here. We’re okay.”

Thank goodness! Prowl would have hugged her, but she was treading water and her hands were bleeding. “It cut me,” she said, worried about the enerrgon in the water. Even if that wasn’t Carcharhinidae, he was here according to the hounds, and the feeding frenzy at the scent of blood in the water was something the god shared with his lesser kin.

“I usually don’t eat my petitioners until after I’ve heard them out.” The voice echoed through the water as the massive creature circled, a triangular fin large enough to create wake-swells as large as the kattumaram cutting though the water.

“Oh!” Prowl splashed again, startled. Which way was she supposed to face? “’Lo.”

“I know what you’ve done. I know why you’ve come.” The fin turned in the water, and Prowl found herself momentarily in the focus of a single, red optic bigger than she was tall.

He already knew? That was good, since Prowl suddenly found it incredibly hard to speak. “’M sorry,” she managed to force out past how intimidated she was.

“This slip is minor enough.” The optic turned away, leaving Prowl facing an immense span of the god’s dappled plating as he eeled gracefully through the water. Below her, she saw the great stabilizing pectoral fins sweep by in what looked like slow motion. “But you know now what will happen if you continue to believe you can serve two tribes.”

“Does it  _ have  _ t’be that way?” Finding her courage, Prowl poured out her spark. “They’re still m’clan. I have responsibilities t’Praxus, an’ they’re important — not just cuz I promised ’em, but cuz I care about ’em. Is there no way t’help ’em that won’t hurt Rainclouds? That won’t hurt all’a Polyhex? Cuz I care about m’new clan too,” she said, emotion welling up. “I love ’em so much. There’s so much beauty here, an’ I don’t wanna do any more damage.”

“And yet, think of what forcing your  _ treaty,” _ the god’s voice held real disgust at the word, “would require of my people. The establishment of the sort of government capable of signing such a document, imposing a political system utterly foreign to them and completely restructuring their lives. Replacing that frustrating and beautiful way of making and reading marks with  _ your _ language. Selling more of their treasures than they can gather naturally, simultaneously destroying both their ability to gather their own food and those treasures’ value, and with them any semblance of independence. The loss of a proving ground for warriors, which would create an increase in population that would make them ever more dependant on Praxan good will — good will literally bought with pearls and shells and whatever else Praxus desires, again at the expense of gathering even more fuel for themselves. Greed would turn my people into nothing more than a vassal state, would turn these islands into barren cinders, the reefs into a wasteland, without even one of those cumbersome eyesores mainlanders call ‘ships’ crossing my teeth. That is the power of information, of  _ words.” _

Prowl hung her head. It sounded like such a horrible progression, and the worst part about it was that it wasn’t exaggerated. She had seen the seeds of just such a future in the consequences of her actions so far, and echoing out of the pages of Auroram’s log. “Ain’t what I want fer ’em at all,” she said. “Ain’t what th’current king’d want either… but ’e won’t always be th’king.”

And Mirage wouldn’t mind if Polyhex was reduced to nothing more than a pearl farm.

The god’s tail finally passed in front of her. He pushed with it against the water, creating a great wave that carried Prowl along like she was no more than one of the kakaru still pulsing through sea. When she righted herself in the clear, red water, all she could see of Carcharhinidae was his mountainous dorsal fin, cutting through the surface of the water and turning slowly to circle back on her.

“I should eat you now, just to eliminate the risk,” the god mused.

“Rather ya didn’t,” Prowl said, quivering at her audacity. “Can’t argue it wouldn’t eliminate th’risk, but I’d rather live t’find a way t’work with both tribes that don’t hurt either of ’em. Maybe… maybe that means I can’t change as much as I’d hoped I could,” she said, recognizing the truth of the words as she said them. The changes she wanted to see were so much more complex than she’d known when she started, and driving forward carelessly with them would only bring down more unforeseen and potentially catastrophic consequences. “I don’t wanna give up, but I can slow down.”

“I am a god of war, not of peace,” Carcharhinidae said. He swam toward her and all Prowl could see was his giant maw, large enough to swallow an island and filled with towering teeth. “You would be hard-pressed to find one of  _ those _ on this island. You came here for judgement, and I have decided.”

Oh no. Was he going to eat her after all? Prowl was terrified, but she  _ had  _ come here for judgment, and was determined to face it. “An’ what have ya decided?”

“There is something you created that may yet spell doom for my people, no matter how careful you are in this lifetime. As long as it exists, you will never have my favor as a warrior of the clan… As long as it exists, you will never be Polyhexian in my optics.” He turned aside to eye her again. “And one sunrise,  _ soon, _ you will need to make a choice. You cannot be of two worlds forever.”

A choice between worlds? “But how—”

The god didn’t give her a chance to finish. Apparently of the mind that the conversation was over now that he’d voiced his judgment, he finished his turn back out to sea with a sweeping flick of his massive tail. The movement raised an enormous wall of water, one that came rushing at Prowl with all the force of a cannon. A thousand cannons, all at once. 

Prowl went tumbling through the water, fighting to stay up, at least  _ close _ to the surface. She screamed for Sundance, unsure whether she was screaming so she could hold onto her and keep the tiny shipcat from drowning, or for her to swim for shore without her, to save herself. There was no way to tell which way was up, which way was back to land; there was nothing but bubbles and kakaru and water.

Then she must have hit a rock, because she blacked out.

.

.

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	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter warnings:** Minor character death.

.

.

.

Prowl woke slowly, groggily, like the morning after overindulging in highgrade. Her frame ached, and her helm pounded against her optics like her processors were trying to escape. That was probably good though, right? It meant she hadn’t drowned after all. 

She found Jazz when she onlined her optics to look for Sundance. Her mate was so dirty she was almost black, sporting a multitude of new scratches, several of which were deep enough that energon had beaded on her plating, but otherwise she was contentedly curled up against her in an increasingly familiar three-person cuddlepile.

“You have a slug on your face,” Sundance meowed helpfully from where she was licking so much dirt off of her plating.

“I what? Ack!” Prowl reached up to swipe it away, then groaned as her head throbbed from the sudden movement. “Did I get it?”

“Yes. But you’re staying away from me until you’re clean. You’re covered in slug slime and I don’t even know what else.” The cat licked her way down her back. “You are the worst, you know that? It’s a good thing you never really overindulged in Praxus. The castle wouldn’t still be standing.”

“What do you mean? A Polyhexian god isn’t about to appear in the castle and create a tidal wave in the main hall.”

Sundance just gave her a  _ look. _ “I’m talking about you, running around the forest, screaming until your vocalizer almost gave out, climbing trees just so you could try to fly off of them, and tossing fireworks at the very scary fireflies. And all that  _ after _ panicking over nothing in the water.”

Prowl blinked stupidly. “I don’t remember doing any of that.” Though now that Sundance mentioned it, she couldn’t remember her fireworks spell either, indicating she had, in fact, cast it at some point. Most of her other spells were missing too. “And it wasn’t  _ nothing  _ in the water! It was a sharkticon the size of an island!”

“I saw a spirit,” Sundance acknowledged, then sniffed in offense, “but there was no reason for you to flail around like I was trying to drown you when all I was trying to do was get you back to shore.”

“You… were?” Prowl shook her head, then immediately regretted it when the pain pounding through her processors spiked. “Ow… But, no, the god said he should eat me?” As a way to eliminate the risk of her making any more mistakes, she remembered. Except he hadn’t eaten her in the end; instead he’d told her she had to make a choice, and then— “He created a tidal wave when he swam away. I was trying to save you.”

Sundance’s tail flicked, prideful and stubborn, studiously ignoring Prowl’s entreaty. Then she sighed and stood, coming over to her. “Don’t touch me, you’re still filthy.” She licked her chevron, cleaning a bit of it. “I love you.”

Prowl smiled. “I love you too. Thank you,” she said earnestly, putting together some of what her familiar had done for her now that she was no longer hallucinating. “I couldn’t see what was around me, but you kept me safe.”

“I tried anyway.”

Beside her, Ricochet shifted and groaned, and Prowl watched her clutch her head and bury her face in the dirt. “Mmmphf.”

Oops. “Too noisy?” Prowl asked softly.

“Sh’wants y’both t’stop caterwaulin’,” Jazz slurred into her shoulder,  _ pain  _ flickering briefly in her EM field and through their bond. “Hurts.”

“It’s not like they were any better than you were,” Sundance meowed. She left a tiny clean patch on Prowl’s chevron and sat back on her haunches so she could look at them all smugly. “I could hear them howling like dubuk being stung by wera from all the way across the island.”

Right. Both of them had gone on their own vision quests, aided by Wheeljack’s spells. What had they seen, wandering blindly around the island? 

“Should sleep s’more, beautiful,” Jazz murmured, snuggling her helm into Prowl.

“’S okay?” Wheeljack was waiting for them, wasn’t he? But she wouldn’t mind getting some more sleep before trudging who-even-knew how far to the edge of the island and swimming out to the kattumaram. Standing up wasn’t something she was sure she could do right now.

“Wheeljack won’leave ’til after ’e’s sure we’ve starved t’death,” Jazz said, her voice still slurring a bit. 

“…What a cheery thought,” Prowl said, then decided she didn’t care. Her optics dimmed and she settled into the pile.

“Don’t take too long to sleep off the rest of your hangover,” Sundance mewed. “I’m smaller than you. I need to eat more often, and  _ someone  _ gave me a workout.”

“Can eat th’rest of th’hexbugs in m’bag,” Prowl mumbled. “Didn’t feed’m all t’th’hounds.” 

She didn’t hear Sundance’s reply.

Her dreams were odd. They came in flashes and snatches that didn’t make much sense at all. Running on the color yellow. Caged by moonlight. Crawling around on a giant crystal tree like a hexbug… But when she woke up again, she felt much better. Less like her optics were trying to melt themselves out of her head, and more… warm and safe, buried in a cuddlepile with her mate.

“Good morning. Again. You’re still filthy,” Sundance reported.

“Pfft. Thanks.” Prowl looked around and found her familiar sitting nearby, a bit of bandage-weed caught on her claws. Turning her head a little more, she saw Ricochet was already up and had her leg stretched out in front of her. It was hard to tell if she’d been trying to bandage one of her cuts and Sundance had been interfering, or if she’d just straight up been playing with the cat. “Hi. Yer head hurt less now too?”

“Bit.” Ricochet stretched. “Y’doin’ okay?”

“I think so. Feel a bit stiff’n tired, but not too banged up.” She still couldn’t remember running through the forest climbing and jumping out of trees, but she didn’t seem to have suffered too much from it. With the aftereffects of Wheeljack’s spell out of her system, the only aches she still had were all from relatively minor dings and scratches. Her palms showed no evidence of the lacerations she remembered bleeding into the water. “What happened? How much’a that was real?”

“All’a it.” Ricochet shrugged. “None’a it.”

“Oh.” So there was no way to know whether she’d really spoken to the gods, or if she’d just wandered around talking to herself. Had she even gotten any answers at all?

_ One sunrise, soon, you will need to make a choice. _

It wasn’t what she’d wanted to hear. It still rang true, whether the words had come from her own subconscious or Carcharhinidae himself.

“Was real,” Jazz groaned. She shifted, rolling over to stretch. “Y’experienced it, so it’s real, even if it wasn’t physical.”

“Th’injuries’re physical enough,” Ricochet grumbled, looking over her twin’s frame. “Y’cracked yerself good on yer shoulder, didn’cha?”

“We survived, we passed,” Jazz waved her off — weakly, and with her uninjured arm. “Did it help, beautiful?”

Had it? From a purely political stance, yes, definitely. Surviving the trial meant her crime had been forgiven by the gods, as far as the clan was concerned. She would face no further consequences from them when and if the truth became widely known. But had it helped her going forward?

“It gave me somethin’ t’think on,” Prowl finally said. The choice before her was too big to make right now; the cycle was coming, but it wasn’t here yet. In the meantime, “There’s somethin’ I need t’do.”

“Somethin’ that involves goin’ back t’th’kattumaram an’ gittin’ somethin’ t’eat?” Ricochet said hopefully.

“Yeah. ’S gonna take me a while,” because she wanted to reread her journals before she destroyed them, “so we can go first.”

Ricochet pushed herself to her feet and then reached down to help first Jazz, then Prowl to their own feet. Jazz braced herself against the nearest tree, but smiled when Prowl looked at her.

“’M’fine,” Jazz insisted. “Can walk.”

“Y’sure ’bout that?” Ricochet heckled.

“’M’sure.”

“I’m walking too,” Sundance said, giving Prowl another disgusted look. “You need a bath.”

“And I’ll get one,” Prowl pointed out, “as we’re swimming back to the boat.”

“Bleh.”

Walking back through the jungle was much easier to do clear-headed. None of them recognized any landmarks, but Ricochet used her tetere to call for Wheeljack’s position so they could orient themselves (and let him know they were on their way). Jazz grumbled that she hadn’t actually been lost anyway, which only prompted Ricochet to play something else that Prowl didn’t understand, but was obviously insulting in some fashion. She shook her head and followed Sundance, leaving them to their subdued scuffle. They’d catch up.

What had she thought while under the influence of Wheeljack’s spell? That the ground was springy? Well it wasn’t now. As they got closer to the shore, it became waterlogged and sucked at her feet, but still not springy. Prowl climbed up on the bakau roots so she wouldn’t sink into the sand.

“I wish you’d thought of doing that before.”

“Oh, you were fine. You don’t weigh enough to sink into it.” Prowl glanced down at her cat. “You said you saw a spirit in the lake, didn’t you?”

“Just a shadow.”

“Hmm.” She knew she should let it go, but the question of real or not-real was one she couldn’t help coming back to. Why would she imagine Keahi as a dragon…? “Were the kakaru real?”

_ “Those _ I saw.” The cat shivered. “Creepy.”

“I don’t know. They were kind of beautiful, once I realized they weren’t going to paralyze or poison me.” Prowl almost wanted to go back and look again with unclouded optics, but they really did need to get back to the kattumaram. Food was a very good idea, one that sounded better with every step. 

As such, the bright red of the open sea, with the kattumaram bobbing gently on the surface, was the most beautiful thing Prowl had seen in a while.

“Race ya!” she heard Ricochet shout just before she came shooting past her out into the water. 

“I’d just embarrass ya!” Jazz called after her, stopping at Prowl’s side. “Doin’ okay?”

“Yeah. Are ya?” It wasn’t like Jazz to turn down a competition. 

Instead of answering, Jazz pulled Prowl into a fierce hug. “I love ya so very, very much.”

Prowl clung back. “I love ya too,” she said, kissing Jazz despite the mess on both their plating. Jazz kissed back, and Prowl felt her frame relax and she purred. “Yer th’best thing that ever happened t’me,” Prowl said between kisses. “Hard as this is, I don’t regret it.” She couldn’t.

“We’re bonded,” Jazz whispered back. “I could never regret that.”

Ricochet was probably all the way to the kattumaram by now. Prowl didn’t care. “’M I allowed t’ask? What it was like fer ya?”

“Like fightin’ in a forest’a shadows,” Jazz answered readily. She shivered, petting Prowl. It had a  _ checking for injuries _ feel to it. 

“Yer hurt worse’n me,” Prowl protested. “Y’had ta fight?”

“I got a fightin’ spirit,” Jazz said, unconcerned. “Had t’call ’er so she could be m’bridge back t’th’world’a th’livin’, but she’s aggressive.”

“Ahh, whereas I had Sundance right beside me, calm as she ever gets.” That made sense, though it had Prowl doing her own  _ checking for injuries  _ petting over her mate’s plating. “Keahi’s hounds sent me t’talk ta Carcharhinidae.” Jazz’s hug turned fierce again, and Prowl leaned into it. “I was so scared.” Thinking back on it with the distance of time and being sober it wasn’t so bad, but in the moment it had been truly harrowing. “’E said ’e oughta just eat me.”

“But ’e didn’t,” Jazz whispered.

“Not yet.” She wasn’t sure she fancied her chances of not being eaten when she went out hunting the dog-shark if she didn’t get rid of her journals first. “’E said I can’t be both Poly’n Prax. That I’d have’ta choose.”

“Will. When yer ready. An’ whatever y’choose, I’ll follow y’anywhere,” Jazz promised, squeezing her one last time before letting her go. “Should go eat.”

“Should.” Prowl did her best to push her jumbled thoughts aside. “I guess fer now I’ll settle fer ya followin’ me t’th’kattumaram.” Though she doubted she’d ever ask her beloved to make the journey all the way to the capital again. It had been so hard on her the first time, and now that Prowl could see all the ways the city had been unnatural to her, the thought of putting her through it again was almost painful. “Race ya?”

Jazz snickered. “I’ll race  _ ya.” _ She laughed when Prowl bristled in mild offense, then dove in without waiting.

Of course Prowl still lost. No matter how good a swimmer she became, Jazz would always be better in the water. It was still a fun race though. Rather than just shooting ahead of her and going straight for the boat, Jazz stayed nearby most of the way, splashing, teasing, and encouraging. It got Prowl laughing as much as it got her clean enough for Sundance to allow herself to be picked up and cuddled when they finally hauled themselves up onto the deck.

“So~rry,” Ricochet drawled in an utterly insincere apology, “ain’t any food left.”

“Liar.” There were still nijan crawling around and over each other in the crate. 

“They’re mine.” 

“Ain’t all yers.” Jazz shoved her twin, then scrambled over to the crate. “Yer tank’ll pop if ya eat all’a ’em.” She snagged one and bit into it immediately.

“Won’t stop ’er from tryin’,” Wheeljack chuckled good-naturedly. “Nice t’have ya all back. And relatively intact, even!”

“Jazz’s hurt worse’n I am,” Prowl said, unsurprised that he was checking her first. “Sundance took good care’a me.”

“Did! So take care of meeeee,” the cat meowed. “Food!”

“I’m working on it!” Setting her down, Prowl went over to the crate to snag her share of the catch. The smallest one she simply picked up and whacked on the deck once before letting Sundance have it and taking her knife to a larger one.

Still chuckling, Wheeljack pulled up the anchor and set the sail while they ate. Ricochet, who finished up first, helped him turn the boat around and together they glided back out to sea, away from the island of the gods.

.

.

.

The war season wasn’t over, but the need to maintain goodwill with the neighboring clans and the lack of Praxan ships meant there was no one Rainclouds could raid. Jazz and Ricochet talked briefly about whether there was enough time to make a foray or two to clans farther afield when they first returned to the island, but ultimately decided against it. 

“Th’season ain’t over yet; we don’t want those clans raidin’ back,” Jazz explained. “An’ th’storms’ll be comin’ soon enough there won’t be many warriors willin’ t’sail all th’way t’Prax now even if there were ships. Makes attackin’ th’cities a bad risk, even if we wanted to.”

“Which ya don’t.”

“Nope. ’M better with ships anyway,” she said proudly, flashing her fangs. “Which means we got two options: stay here’n fend fer ourselves near th’island ’til we have’ta shelter from th’storms, or leave early’n take ya back t’Hightower.”

“We got  _ one  _ option,” Prowl said firmly. “I can’t go back yet.”

That made Jazz smile widely, pleased. She let off a tetere call that had the warriors scattering to fend for themselves at the next sunrise. Close enough, she said, to respond in case someone did try to sneak in a raid — they weren’t usually defenders, but as aggressors put in defensive positions by circumstance, they  _ would  _ defend — but far enough away that they wouldn’t be a burden on their clan.

In the cycles that followed, Prowl practiced and got better with her harpoon. She still needed a truestrike spell to hit anything reliably the first time, but her hit-to-miss ratio was slowly improving. Ricochet still gave her grief over it, but Prowl bore her sarcasm-laced instruction with as much grace as possible — and the occasional scuffle in the water. 

They didn’t wind up having to repel any raids, fortunately. The only encounters they had with any of the neighboring clans stayed peaceful, focused on trade rather than combat. It wasn’t as firm a truce as the islands-wide one governing the harvest season, but those who approached Rainclouds were willing, for now at least, to “go easy” on them until they were back on their feet.

During one such trade meetup with a kattumaram full of pearldivers whose pilot had a physical spirit — a hoku, one of the flat-ish five-armed sea stars, of all things — Sundance picked up another spell that helped Prowl feel more comfortable with the harpoon in general. Truestrike only helped her aim, while the new spell made it easier to move and swim with it as well. It made her feel more confident about the Karakia, though Jazz and Ricochet both insisted she didn’t need to worry about the ritual just yet. 

“’S too close t’th’end’a th’season,” Ricochet said firmly. “Weather’s too unpredictable, an’ provin’ yerself against th’storms ain’t part’a th’challenge.”

“Not this challenge, anyway.” Jazz grinned. “We stayed out all storm season once, just th’two’a us. Ain’t just anyone can say that!”

Prowl smiled at her mate’s preening. “Maybe I’ll be one’a ’em, someday,” she said, “but one challenge at a time’s enough fer me!”

“And me,” Sundance meowed. “Staying out in the storms means rain, and rain means wet.”

Jazz snickered at the familiar complaint. “Still with the wet, huh? Think ya’d be used t’it by now, with how long we’ve been out here on th’boat!”

Sundance stubbornly refused to concede the point, but Prowl could admit that living like this was doing a lot to wear down her more “refined” edges. Water? Water was everywhere. So what? Salt and rust too, though she still took enough issue with sand and ash to garner a good amount of teasing. Her fussiness was famous among the clan, though the jibes were generally all in good fun.

She still torched the haphazard ohe-leaf “umbrella” Freestuff wove for her to “protect her delicate finish” from a fresh ashfall.

They stayed out on the sea for nearly two decacylces, gathering what scraps they could from the damaged reef to sustain themselves. That was another thing Prowl had to get used to: not being as picky about what she ate. Slimy sea worms and squirming hexbugs were still gross, but hunger was a powerful motivator. She learned to force the fuel down without complaint, for the most part. There was only so much she could do to school her expression the one and only time she was desperate enough to try the partially digested contents of a sharkticon’s fuel tank.

Polyhexians really would eat  _ anything! _

Then, as everyone had said would happen, one cycle the clouds gathered and darkened ominously. It wasn’t raining, but the air felt oppressive, heavy, and Sundance huddled at Prowl’s side until Jazz and Ricochet set course for Rainclouds. They weren’t the only ones, either; all of the other scattered warriors were returning too, converging on the shores seemingly without a care that the village had all but disappeared while they were at sea. 

“Moved to a better spot,” Jazz said, not even bothering to look for signs of where they’d gone. “We’ll find ’em after we secure th’kattumaram inland.” 

“Inland?”

“Yeah. Usually we’d use th’bakau,” Jazz said as they leapt ashore, directing Prowl to help them haul the boat out of the water and over the bare, cracked ground until it was not only unreachable by the tide, but all the way up in the remaining jungle. “Y’know. Th’ones in th’river.”

“The river that don’t exist no more,” Ricochet added, like she could have forgotten. “C’mon. Git yer stuff. Ain’t leavin’ anything in th’boat.”

When she said they weren’t leaving anything, she really meant it. They stripped absolutely everything they could off the kattumaram, even the kopapa and the sail, and tied the frame as securely as possible to the crystal trees. Sundance, since she couldn’t (and also didn’t want) to help with that chore, took on the task of locating the village and took off.

“Really hope it doesn’t burn,” Ricochet said, checking over the knots one more time.

“’S in th’hands’a th’gods,” Jazz said, shouldering the first of many loads to carry away to their new shelter. Wherever that was. “Sundance come back yet?”

This time Prowl didn’t even ask if the storms really got that bad. She already knew the answer was yes. “No, but she’ll find us if we start looking and she beats us to the village.”

Sure enough, they hadn’t been walking long when the shipcat made her appearance. “It’s this way,” she said proudly, setting off at the front of their small procession with her tail waving like a flag.

They found everyone holed up in a series of three fire-riverbeds closely arranged together in the flow, with entrances near the edge of the jungle. Some mechs were still recharging in hammocks or sleeping hollows in the jungle itself, but most were already inside the caves, spread out in pockets in the larger spaces.

“Prowl!” Crux ran up as soon as she saw them. Sundance darted out of the way and Prowl braced herself to stay standing while she was tackled. “I missed ya. Can I come next time y’go out?  _ Please.” _

“Missed ya too, keong.” Prowl hugged and pet her. “Dunno ’bout comin’ with next time though.” If this was the beginning of the storm season, the next time she went out would probably be her dog-shark hunt, and that was supposed to be something she did all by herself. “Pretty sure that trip’s gonna be warriors only.”

“Awww.”

“Sorry. At least it won’t be fer awhile? Can’t go out again ’til th’storms pass.” Until then, Prowl would be happy to share a nest with Crux. She’d missed the newling while they were out on the water.

In this arrangement, the warriors didn’t have an assigned spot, so Jazz bullied her way into the three of them being allowed a spot inside the largest, driest of the tunnels, where Wheeljack and Leaf were sharing a nest near the main fire. Crux had been sleeping with a pair of villagers just around the bend, but somehow her meager belongings appeared among the next load of things from the kattumaram she helped bring in. No one tried to get her to move, and that night, Prowl fell asleep in a cuddlepile of four.

The first storm broke the next sunrise. It put every storm Prowl had ever seen to shame; the only merciful thing about it was that it waited until she was already awake to terrify her. Lightning ripped across the sky, lancing down to strike the island. It did indeed set portions of the remaining jungle on fire, and great big swaths of it burned while the winds whipped around them. Even in the protected caves, the air quickly filled with smoke — hot, dark, acrid smoke laden with the scent of burning crystal, completely different from the lighter-colored rock-ash from the mountain — and it was with a sort of morbid curiosity that Prowl crept to the nearest exit to take a peek.

The sight that met her optics froze her in her tracks. Trembling, she watched the winds pick up the flames like dust in a simple street-swirl in the city.

A street-swirl easily taller than the buildings rather than barely clearing the gutters.

“Why is the weather here so  _ awful?”  _ Sundance whined, huddled in Prowl’s arms.

Neither she nor Sundance resisted when Jazz came to guide them back down the tunnel.

Since there was absolutely no way she was going outside now, Prowl found ways to spend her time closeted in the cave productively. She reread the three volumes of her journal, meticulously studying them as she would a spellbook with Sundance at her side. There wasn’t enough jungle for the fire-swirls to gain much momentum (which made it less frightening for Prowl, but no one on the island was willing to call it fortunate), and once the rains started in earnest, they persisted only for a short time before dying out. Not that the rain was really any better, given how it literally  _ pounded _ against the island with nearly the same force of the wind. With the storms turning the island into a sodden mess, she almost chuckled when she reread her early skittishness with just the residual weather at the beginning of the harvest season.

“You’ve learned a lot since then,” Sundance said. “Changed a lot too.”

“Is that good or bad?” 

“It’s a matter of perspective.” The cat scratched idly at one ear, then bumped her head against Prowl. “I think they’re good changes. So does Jazz.”

Despite herself, Prowl felt her plating warm. There was no way she was giving up Jazz… and if she wasn’t willing to ask Jazz to come back to Praxus again, perhaps it really was a good thing she was becoming more Polyhexian.

She certainly felt more like herself in the islands.

“Oh, look, here you were complaining about the lack of privacy on Harvest.”

“Pfft. What’s privacy?” She was crammed in a tunnel-cave with several dozen people. There was no way  _ not  _ to know what everyone was up to at any given time, and it had been an awfully long time since she and Jazz had… well. Counting up the cycles was depressing. She was starting to think she’d never get the privacy she wanted for interfacing.

“If you’re thinking about that, then you’re not really paying attention to the book.” Sundance stood up and headed deeper into the tunnels. “I’m going hunting. You need to decide if you’re going to keep letting company stop you from getting any.”

“Sundance!” Prowl’s doors went back in affront. “Really!”

“What? I’m just telling you the truth. Being stubborn is your choice, but it  _ is  _ a choice. Either commit to it, or,” she flicked her tail and vanished into the shadows, “get over it.” 

“Like you, I suppose?” Prowl meowed softly after her, but of course there was no response. She sighed and packed her journals back up for the time being, then wandered over to watch the storm. The wind was relatively calm for the moment, but the air was still full of light and sound. Thunder and lightning chased each other across the sky, and Prowl thought of the stories on Harvest about the gods playing with each other. 

They’d done more than play, in some of those stories… 

“Ohhh, what am I going to do?” Prowl pressed her hands over her face. She really couldn’t get her mind off it!

She continued to be distracted by it for the next several cycles. It didn’t help that she (and Jazz) were the only ones refraining, and she could hear every time boredom or affection drove any of the cave’s many inhabitants to sharing themselves that way.

Finally, Prowl cracked and did something just as Polyhexian as the rest of them. A cycle dark with clouds but without lightning inspired her to pull Jazz out of the shelter of the cave and into the rain.

“Prowl, what’re ya—”

“Shh.” Prowl silenced her with a kiss. “Chase me,” she whispered against her lover’s lips, then ran off into the forest. 

A long time ago, Jazz had warned her not to run from her unless she wanted to be caught. She’d not understood then, but she did now. Polyhexians and their spirits were one, so much so that there was a pronoun specifically for addressing both mech and spirit  _ as _ a single entity. When a wolf, a turbodog — a cat — saw something running, they chased. If she wanted someone to back off, she needed to stand her ground. But right now, she very much wanted to be pursued.

“Eep!” Slick with rain nanokliks after setting foot outside, Prowl slid out of her mate’s grasp when Jazz caught up with her and laughed. “Can’t git me that easily!” She must not have hesitated at all to give chase, and Prowl shivered at the intense light in her visor. “Try again!”

Growling, Jazz did. She chased Prowl so far into the forest there was nothing but rain and wind to bear witness.

Then she  _ pounced. _

“Spirits’n gods,  _ yes!”  _ Prowl grabbed onto her as they fell, rolling a couple of times over the ground until Jazz settled on top of her. “Touch me! Please, please, Jazz!”

“Love ya. Want ya,” Jazz growled, kissing and licking her way to Prowl’s chest seam. Hers was already cracked open in anticipation.  _ Want! _

It had been too long for Prowl to even think about going slow.  _ Want!  _ Her plating parted and she gasped. “Want ya too! Over’n over!”

She writhed at the touch of her love’s claws against her inner plating, against her spark, right before Jazz lowered herself completely and their sparks joined.

_ Love!  _ Prowl sobbed, just barely able to feel Jazz stroking her helm as they sank into the merge. There was the last piece of forgiveness she hadn’t allowed herself since the ship raids, right there in Jazz’s spark: she forgave her, she  _ trusted  _ her, and she loved her more than words could encompass. 

Prowl felt the same way.

_ Best mate ever,  _ she pulsed along the bond.  _ Love! _

They added lightning to this storm. Overload crashed over them both, a moment of exquisite bliss. Prowl tried to hold onto it for as long as she could, but she was swept up in it, like the flash floods she’d seen over the flow when the rain first started. Jazz sang out a bright note of pure joy.

“Caught ya,” she purred against Prowl’s neck plating as they settled back into their frames.

Prowl flipped them over in the sand. “And now I’ve caught  _ ya.” _

Jazz laughed.

This time Prowl was able to rein back her desire enough to make things last a bit longer. Staying away from Jazz’s chest seam, she lavished her with attention everywhere else, strokes and scratches and kisses. The rain was probably washing it away, but Prowl wanted Jazz to have her scent all over her.

Jazz, by her responses, clearly felt the same.

They didn’t return to the cave until after nightfall.

“Finally broke, huh?” Ricochet laughed as they came back in, hand in hand. “Took ya long enough.”

“Shut up,” they both said in unison before looking at each other and cracking up. 

“She said chase me,” Jazz said, leaning on Prowl for support (or was Prowl leaning on her?). “What was I s’posed t’do?”

“Frag ’er a bit more’n come back sometime after next sunrise,” Ricochet heckled, stringing kelapa charms and pearls onto a long strand. They’d be selling it, come the harvest season, but right now making jewelry from the various shells and gems they’d gathered was a great, quiet way to entertain themselves.

Jazz scoffed. Carefully she stood on her own, then went to fetch two bowls of hupa from the fire. 

“One’a those fer me?” Prowl asked, slowly making her way over to her belongings. 

“Aka. Rico’s been ’ere long enough t’serve ’er own.” The twins stuck their tongues out at each other.

“So mature.” Starting with the journal in her bag, Prowl dug out the other books she’d written in until she had all three of them. The remaining blank she put in her bag with a promise to use it only for things like working out spells, which left only the  _ Skylark’s _ log. She hesitated over it. It was a Galifarian artifact, a piece of history. If the fleet had been following any actual instructions for how to navigate to Polyhex, they had not been recorded in this book; all the navigational data had been lost with the  _ Glorious, _ the fleet flagship. Did it really need to be destroyed, when the only information it contained about Polyhex was proof Galifar had once thought to conquer it? 

Rereading the last few pages confirmed what she already knew: the captain had not recorded what had happened to his ship. There was no mention of the reef. It could have been a storm, or a pirate attack… anything. The book wasn’t dangerous for its information so much as its attitude. Prowl didn’t want anyone using the fact that Galifar had once (maybe more than once) tried to conquer Polyhex as justification for finishing the job. But it was also an interesting look into how Galifar had run its warships, and she didn’t want to destroy that.

It wasn’t immediately dangerous, and it wasn’t anything of her making. This one she could think on. 

“Somethin’ th’matter, beautiful?”

“Nope.” The  _ Skylark’s  _ log went back in her bag, safe and dry. “Just takin’ care’a somethin’.” 

Feeling almost like the act was lacking in ceremony, Prowl brought her journals over to the fire. But then, what need was there for anything fancy? The god would know as soon as the books were gone, just as he’d known what she’d done without having to be told. And so, starting with the first one, she simply threw them on the flames.

That got both Jazz and Ricochet to sit up with a pair of surprised squawks. “What’re ya doin’?”

“Yer always so protective’a those…”

Prowl couldn’t answer. The words wouldn’t come out. 

Surprise softened into sympathy. Jazz stood and came over to sit by her, wrapping her arms around her. She didn’t say anything more, just held her while the books burned.

Despite her determination, Prowl did cry as the flimsies curled, sparked, and turned black. She’d worked so hard on those. But other than the record of who she’d been when she’d first arrived on the islands, there was nothing in them she couldn’t keep in her head. Those books had helped her cope and process, but she no longer needed them. Their usefulness now was to anyone else coming to Polyhex for the first time.

That was why they needed to go.

Soon, so soon, there was nothing left but ash.

“I can control what I tell people ’bout Polyhex,” Prowl finally whispered, her voice slowly gaining in strength as she spoke. “Can wait ’til I know what I’m sayin’ won’t bring hurt t’anyone. But th’spells in those  _ books _ coulda let people know things they shouldn’t, things we ain’t ready t’tell ’em. This way, that can’t happen. Carcharhinidae let me live instead’a eatin’ me t’take away that risk, so now I’ve taken care’a it myself.”

_ Love.  _ Love pulsed over the bond from Jazz, and even Ricochet looked proud of her. Prowl managed a shaky smile, confident in her decision. It hadn’t been easy, but while she regretted the necessity, she didn’t regret her actions.

Jazz gave her one more tight hug and passed her a bowl of hupa.

The thin, Praxan midgrade-based broth, nothing at all like what hupa should be, reminded her why she  _ had _ to do this. Rainclouds was surviving on this thinned fuel ration, but it was hard on them all. Eleven elders were refusing food so that younger mechs could eat, and the tribe had accepted that they were choosing to starve themselves to death with little more than a collective shrug. The clan storytellers were busy spending time with them, memorizing everything they could before they became stars, but that was it.

Life in Polyhex walked so much closer to death than it did in Praxus. 

They got a reprieve from the gnawing hunger and the sore tanks when a lull in between storms sent all of the warriors scurrying to take advantage of the lack of rain and lightning, and the relatively mild wind, to hunt a creature Prowl could only think of as a sea monster. A peaceful sea monster.

Crux got to come on the hunt, much to her delight. Not just to experience it, but to help! She was very proud of that fact, and rightly. For all that the creature was peaceful, it was massive, and not easy to bring in. But bring it in they did, and for the first time since the… Prowl still didn’t know what to call Keahi’s eruption of fire and rock… For the first time since that, there was a true celebration when the warriors returned victorious.

“Dance with me?” Jazz asked hopefully, visor sparkling with the light of the fire and the energy of a full tank.

Prowl took her hand. “Always.” Tomorrow they would be back to the frustration and arguments over rationing to make their new windfall last as long as possible, but tonight there was plenty. Tonight was a party, a time to enjoy living, not just surviving, and Prowl danced like she didn’t have a care in the world.

That lack of care carried over as the dancing evolved into something more heated, and when Jazz started to back off, assuming she wouldn’t be comfortable continuing, Prowl held on. “Can’t promise I’m completely over it,” she whispered as she kissed her way up Jazz’s neck, “but tonight? I’m over it.”

Jazz pounced.

Embarrassment was overrated, she decided later. It certainly helped that no one behaved like this was a private act, or that Prowl had acted shamefully. The phantom of her teachers’, the court’s, disapproval was washed out like faded paints. Everyone here was happy she and Jazz had interfaced. They were mates! 

“Still won’t let me lick though, will ya?” Crux asked when they were done.

“Nope. Don’t want licks from anyone but Jazz.” Prowl reached out to pull Crux into their cuddlepile. “But hugs I’ll take from anyone.”

The next sunrise, with the break in the storms holding, Ricochet nudged both her and Crux awake for weapon practice: also known as running around the wet, slippery forest while a deranged warrior chased them until they were completely exhausted. Since this wasn’t ship combat, any sort of tactic was allowed, including running, hiding, and sneaking around the trees. Spirit-possessed warriors almost never retreated — and never easily — but cowardice wasn’t really a Polyhexian concept. Running, hiding, sneaking and stealing were all a normal part of combat and raiding to them.

Crux had the better dexterity and strength between them, but Prowl had the knowledge and experience to use the terrain to her advantage in ways the newling didn’t. Luckily for her, because Ricochet was done pulling punches. She made them work hard, pouring everything they had into staying “alive”. 

Prowl was surprised how quickly she missed those exertions when the weather drove them back into the tunnels. She’d take aching and tired over anxious and bored, but there was nothing for it. Going outside was too dangerous to risk for anything other than necessity, and for Prowl there was none. For most of them there was none, which hit the warriors particularly hard. Ricochet complained bitterly about not being able to go out raiding or hunting like they normally would, and she wasn’t the only one. 

“But how can ya do anything in a storm like this?” Prowl asked, trying to distract them all from the monotony of beadmaking. Four straight cycles of rain so heavy they couldn’t see even a handspan past the entrance of the tunnel! Everyone was concerned about flash floods, especially after Zephyr nearly got himself washed away going out to help a group of stranded chital. If it hadn’t been for Scratch, his large spirit steadying him against the deluge, they never would have seen him again. 

Ricochet gave her a  _ look.  _ “By goin’ out’n doin’ it,” she said, like it should have been obvious. 

Jazz snickered, then took pity on Prowl. “Ain’t easy, sure, but ain’t impossible either. Rain this heavy’d have most’a our attention on th’boat, but fish still gotta eat.”

“If y’git lucky,” one of the other warriors said, “y’git storm-stunned fish tossed up on yer deck.”

“Really?”

_ “Really _ lucky,” one of the fishermechs put in dryly. “Ain’t no one but cliff-jumpers’n warriors out on the water in this weather.”

“Rain ain’t a reason t’stop livin’.”

Jazz rubbed between Prowl’s doorwings gently. “Usually we’d all be in sleepin’ hollows’n bird-nests still,” she reminded her quietly. “Fire — Keahi — don’t care about the season though. She does what she likes.”

Prowl shuddered. “Can’t imagine sleepin’ out in this.” But then, she’d felt the same about a lot of other things that had become commonplace. “Not sorry I don’t have’ta git used to it quite yet.”

“Yer gonna be sleepin’ on th’kattumaram,” Ricochet heckled, and Jazz shoved her so hard the basket of beads she was working on spilled. Rico let out a fierce growl that had an echo of the fishing cat in it, and Jazz answered—

Both of them got a knock on the helm from Wheeljack. “Knock it off y’two. Ain’t th’time’r place fer a fight like that.”

“’S’th’right  _ time,” _ Ricochet snarled. Jazz canted her head to one side… and before Prowl could blink they’d both run out into the pouring rain to pounce on each other, growling and hissing.

Another warrior looked skyward at the roof of the cave. “Stars give me strength.” He sat in Ricochet’s place and started picking up the spilled beads. “So when can we hunt again?”

“Leaf’n Zephyr say th’large animal hot spots haven’t reformed,” Wheeljack said as he knelt down to help, “so I dunno. Not yet.”

That earned him a chorus of groans and curses, but no arguments. The priest-mages’ words regarding the island were as close to law as Polyhex got. 

“Don’t worry,” Wheeljack said cheerfully. “There’ll be more’n enough raidin’ next turn’a th’seasons t’make up fer this.” 

Prowl frowned. “There will?” she asked, leaning over her work to scoop Sundance up out of the way. “Those beads aren’t toys.”

“Start growin’ chuno’n helpin’ th’jungle regrow this harvest season,” Wheeljack said wryly. “Warriors’ll come back with some things before this comin’ war season we can plant then. Maybe next storm season can hunt again.  _ Next _ harvest season we might be able t’replant th’other crops, but somma ’em, like kelapa, won’t make seed crystals fer a few turns’a th’seasons after that…”

“An’ all’a that time, we can’t do as much food-findin’ as normal,” the warrior whined.

“So th’warriors go out, t’see what can be found, traded, hunted’r stolen from beyond our shores,” Wheeljack finished. “Even more’n they normally do.” He chuckled.

“Oh.” What else could she say? It made perfect sense when everything was laid out like that. Until the island recovered, a process she’d already been told wasn’t a quick one, of course resources would have to come from outside. The tentative, temporary truces with their nearest neighbors would fall apart once they were no longer quite so destitute, and the warriors would do exactly what their title indicated in Polyhex: go out and bring stuff back. 

“From Praxan ships too, probably,” Sundance meowed, wriggling to get back to the beads. “It’s higher risk, but also higher return, and they’re going to need that if they’re going to rebuild.”

The undeniable truth of that pulled both ways on Prowl’s divided spark.

Eventually, after what felt like a much longer time than it actually was, the worst of the storms were declared over. The season itself wasn’t finished, but Leaf and Zephyr announced that it was safe to move back out of the caves, much to everyone’s relief. The clan’s kattumaram and canoes appeared in the water as if by magic (it wasn’t; Prowl had to help haul a few of them down and they were  _ heavy). _ Soon the sails dotted the water as the fishermechs went out to find what they could, scouring the reef to see how it had fared. Tetere calls echoed across the sea, proudly declaring that Rainclouds had survived the storms.

Survived, yes, but they were still a long way from thriving. Fishing had resumed only just in time to take the pressure off their desperately depleted stores, and not all of the kattumaram had escaped the fires. Prowl was incredibly relieved when they found theirs intact, if partially buried under storm-shattered crystal. Not everyone had been as lucky, and while two boats were declared repairable by the clan shipwright, Marlinspike had to throw up his hands at the other six.

“Glad we went t’th’trouble’a bringin’ all this in,” Jazz said while they were getting their kattumaram seaworthy again. They hadn’t bothered taking very much with them on their brief mid-season hunting foray, and they’d tied the boat down again just like at the beginning of the season when they’d returned. “Didal’s cohort didn’t an’ their sail’s all torn up from th’storms. They’ll be patchin’ fer sunrises before they can do more’n row t’git from place t’place.”

“Rowin’ still works t’fish, don’t it?”

“Ish. ’S a lotta effort though, and ya still run th’risk’a gittin’ pulled out t’sea an’ gittin’ stranded if y’ain’t got a good sail.”

Of course, for the dog-shark hunt, Prowl wasn’t going to have a sail. Just a canoe with a stabilizing float attached with two ohe poles.

“How much longer ’til it’s safe t’range away from th’island?”

Jazz hugged her, but it lacked the edge of worry this subject had inspired in her before. “Leaf’n Zephyr say there ain’t gonna be any more’a th’island rocking storms now, just little squalls like we skirted th’edges of on th’way t’Harvest. Can go whenever y’feel ready.”

When she was ready, huh? She already had the spells she needed to make sure she could handle the harpoon. Her stamina could stand a few cycles to recover from living on low rations — which she would happily never do again now that she’d experienced it! — but beyond that, there wasn’t a whole lot she would gain by waiting much longer. Other than, “Is there a way I can git in some practice with a canoe?”

“Of course, beautiful.”

The canoe was different than paddling the kattumaram, mostly in that it wasn’t as cumbersome. It didn’t take long at all to adjust for the difference, and soon Prowl was actually better at handling the smaller vessel than she was with the larger boat. Confident she was as ready as she could be, she told Jazz it was time.

She and Jazz merged once more —  _ love, love, lovelovelovelove _ — before she set out on her own into the reef.

Well. Mostly alone.

“I’m not going in the water with you when you find it,” Sundance said, front paws up on the edge of the canoe so she could look over the side. “It’s wet.”

“You know, I’m starting to think you don’t actually mind the water as much as you say you do.”

“And you mind it more than you say you do. I’m balancing us out.” 

“I don’t know, I’ve become awfully Polyhexian lately… and who ever heard of a Polyhexian shipcat that doesn’t like water?”

The look her spirit gave her was one of such overblown disgust that Prowl had to laugh.

She took them out away from the island, aiming for the Teeth. She tried to remember how far away the shipwreck had been from Rainclouds; it had supposedly been moved “too close” for the dog-sharks, though who knew whether or not that was true anymore. After the storms she’d seen, she wouldn’t be surprised to hear it had been flung all the way back to Praxus.

Speaking of storms, she saw clouds gathering in the distance as the cycle wore on. She found a place to anchor and leapt into the water to take care of catching something to eat before the front could arrive. Using the truestrike spell on her harpoon was quick and effective, and in preparation for this trip she’d made sure to dedicate several of her available spells to it. Two uses saw two fish tossed up into the canoe. Prowl climbed back in just in time to eat hers and set up her tarp to keep the rain from pooling in the canoe before the first drops started to fall.

Her first night out on the water was spent listening calmly to the same rain and thunder that had so frightened her less than a vorn ago. 

The hardest part, she hoped, would be finding the dog-sharks. She remembered what little she’d been told: spots on the side, two spines just in front of its fins, and travelling in large, aggressive packs. The edge of the reef was the best place, so she headed there.

Over the following cycles, Prowl got in plenty of practice navigating the dangerous edge of the Teeth; so much she actually became comfortable with it. She also became more comfortable hunting for fish where she had to dive down further, into rougher waters, to get fuel to satisfy both her and Sundance. It all took time, but Prowl considered it time well spent. She wanted to be strong and well fed when she found the sharks.

She was on one such deep hunting dive when the shadows appeared like ghosts in the water around her. At first the dream-vision of Carcharhinidae clung to her plating and she thought they were the harmless swarm of kakaru of the spirit-lake. Then one slipped closer to her and she saw the distinctive long silhouette of a sharkticon.

Hundreds of sharkticons.

_ Frag.  _

She needed to get back up to the canoe and out of the water, but too much flailing could make them swarm her. Thanking all the gods that she’d thought to prepare this particular spell, Prowl cast a magical buoyancy on herself and held as still as possible as she began to rise. Her harpoon was in her hand, but she didn’t brandish it. She wasn’t threatening, she wasn’t bleeding,  _ she’d destroyed her journals.  _ They should leave her alone.

It was a nerve-wracking klik, rising through the swarm. She tried not to shiver. There were so many! And they were aggressively hunting down and eating all of the fish living at the edge of the reef. She saw a pack of snake-fish wriggling through the kohuke itself, chasing other fish out into the jaws of the sharkticons. The sharkticons, in turn, chased the fish into their hiding places, where they were easy prey for the snake-fish.

A fascinating partnership really, but not one that had any room for her in it.

Luckily, none of the hungry predators showed any interest in following her as she floated away from their hunting grounds. Prowl resisted the urge to speed her ascent with her arms and legs, patiently waiting for the spell to do its job and bring her to the surface. She had enough air, she did; a slightly strained engine was significantly preferable to being swarmed by sharkticons.

Finally, she broke through the surface and gasped air into her engine. With quick, efficient strokes she swam to the canoe and hauled herself, dripping, into it. Frag, that was a close call.

“What’s wrong?”

Prowl shook her head. “Nothing. There’s just a very large group of sharkticons below us. Don’t rock the canoe.”

“Aren’t we looking for a very large group of sharkticons?” the cat asked, but with a comforting headbutt.

“Dog-sharks, not sharkticons. The ones down there now, I’ve seen before, and I know they’re the wrong kind.” These were the ones Jazz had called white-tips.

“Okay. Let’s go back into the reef to get some food then.”

“Yes. But slowly.” There were enough sharkticons to flip the canoe if they got it into their minds to come after it.

Prowl felt a lot better in the shallower water. The tension of the near miss unwound all at once when they reached the reef, and she needed several kliks to compose herself before she could do anything about fishing. 

A meal of bright fish finished settling her systems, and greatly pleased her spirit.

“What are you going to do about the dog-sharks when you do find them?” Sundance asked, licking the last drops of energon from her lips. “You won’t be able to just float away from them.”

“No, I won’t,” Prowl acknowledged. “But I’m hoping they’ll be in a slightly smaller group than that one, for starters. Then I can… I don’t know, lure one away?” The reality of a swarm of sharks in the water all around her was very different from the idea of it, and she found herself having to rethink her strategy. “If I can get one by itself, closer to the reef, I can harpoon it without attracting all the rest. Maybe.”

Despite the unnerving encounter, Prowl persisted. She rowed down the edge of the reef, checking her position against the stars on the rare occasion she could see them and Sundance’s spots when she couldn’t, thinking about her plan. It probably wasn’t a very good one, but she couldn’t bring herself to be as recklessly daring as a Polyhexian warrior-hopeful, just barely not a newling, presumably would be, and dive in to harpoon one right out of the swarm.

When the wreck — the first wreck she’d seen, crossing the Teeth for the first time — loomed out of the thunderstorm, it felt like an omen.

“I’m going to try something different,” she told Sundance, finding a place to anchor where the waves couldn’t dash her canoe against the wreck. “Don’t eat all the fish, okay?”

“What fish?”

“The ones I’m—” hopefully “—going to throw in the boat. I want to get us a big meal, but I also want to catch some bait.”

“Oh! You think they’ll be here?”

“Yeah.” One last tug on the anchor proved it was properly hooked, and Prowl splashed down into the water with the rain. “Wish me luck.”

Great big schools of silvery fish darted through the water around the wreck, but Prowl avoided them, staying further away and hunting in the kohuke for her meal. She wasn’t really worried about the stinging crystals anymore; she’d dealt with enough feverish scratches to know she’d recover.

Feeling lucky, she picked up a dozen kina for herself and Sundance. She thought about a small wheke she spotted, but then gave it a pass when she saw the bright blue warning rings. Instead she poked through the crevasses with the butt of her harpoon looking for nijan or hoku or other shelled creatures. She delivered those to the boat, then dove back down to find her bait. 

She managed to snatch a hard-beaked kohuke-eater because it was slow moving, without having to spear it. Perfect. The less damage she did now, the better it should work to lure a single dog-shark away from the pack… assuming she didn’t just attract all of them when she found them, at which point she’d have to rethink her plan again. Either way she needed bait, and more than just one piece.

Between the storm and how late in the cycle it was, it was quite dark by the time she decided she had enough. She’d restocked on hexbugs for her light spell before leaving Rainclouds (the small creatures had bounced back remarkably fast from the devastation of the island), so once she got herself up into the canoe she was able to cast it and get the bait separated from the food without any trouble.

“Why are you putting those in the bucket?”

“So I can keep them fresh in water until I need them, like Jazz keeps the nijan in their crate.” She set the bucket aside at the end of the canoe where she wouldn’t kick it when she was done, then drew her knife to tackle the kina. 

“I kept them from crawling away,” Sundance meowed proudly.

“You did?” Prowl smiled. Such a fierce hunter, swatting the slow-moving kina around the tiny boat. At least she’d been entertained. “Thank you.”

They ate the kina and the nijan, small enough that, after killing them, Prowl just ate them whole the same as Sundance. It was a satisfying meal, and she hoped it’d be the last time she hunted anything but her dog-shark until she got back to Rainclouds.

Both she and Sundance were nervous as her familiar helped her refresh her spells that night. Prowl forewent her flashy fire spells entirely, as she had for this entire hunt, and concentrated on water spells, like Hydraulic Push and that new water shield spell she’d managed to develop properly in the abundance of directionless joors in the tunnels. The spell to give her better familiarity with the harpoon and Truestrike. Buoyancy. Alter Self. Lightning Bolt and Magic Missile. She made sure she had the components for each carefully tucked into a folded rubber weed leaf, and left the larger bag of components on the boat, so that if she needed them she wouldn’t be ruining the whole lot with sea water.

Then, ready as she could be, she napped until the sun rose behind the clouds. When it was as light as it was going to get, Prowl took the kohuke-eater, wiggling and thrashing, out of the bucket and swam to the wreck.

She still couldn’t stay underwater as long as Jazz or Ricochet or even Crux could, but she could hold her vents long enough to explore the lower levels of the wreck. She didn’t know if this one was older than the  _ Skylark _ , or just more exposed to the elements, but it was almost completely fallen apart.

She surfaced and dove again.

Disappointed that she wasn’t finding any sharkticons — much less any dog-sharks — Prowl abandoned the kohuke-torn room she was exploring and froze as she looked out into the open water. The small silvery fish schooling around the wreck were clumped into a tight ball near the surface while a pack of sharkticons herded and harried them, darting into the school to snatch fish.

Did they have spots on their sides? A pair of spines on their backs? She couldn’t tell. Alter self gave her better underwater vision, and though the spell would only last a breem or so, she cast it. Details that had shimmered in the water stabilized and clarified. She saw dots on the sides of the sharkticons, an odd shape in front of each spine.

Yes!

She had more bait in the canoe; she could lure one closer to be sure before making her kill. Sticking close to the side of the wreck, Prowl went up for air, hooked the fish she was carrying onto her rope, and sliced it down the side so it would bleed and struggle. Then she dove back down to confront the sharks.

At first, nothing happened. Prowl didn’t panic, knowing it would take time for the scent of energon in the water to reach the sharks. Maybe she should go back up again for air while it— wait! Several of the sharks on the edge of the pack were turning, peeling away from the rest and ignoring the school of fish to head her way. 

She’d been hoping to attract a slightly smaller group… Still, nine was better than ninety. 

Maybe she could lose a few more through the wreck?

Unfortunately, the sharks were aptly named. The small pack pursued the bait doggedly, refusing to be shaken by any tricks Prowl attempted. Not that she could do very much; she’d given herself a good length of rope to work with so the sharks would come close without getting  _ too  _ close all at once, but that meant she couldn’t move the bait very precisely. If she wasn’t careful it would snag on the wreck, and then she’d wind up losing the rope as well as the bait.

One of the sharkticons got impatient and darted in to tear a chunk from the bait. That seemed to signal the rest to close in, tearing their own strips from the fish.

As soon as they severed the end of the rope, Prowl took off for the surface. She needed air and new bait, and she needed to grab both before the miniature swarm finished off the meager meal and went back to the pack.

“What are—”

“Can’t talk,” she half-said, half-gasped to Sundance while she reached into the bucket for another fish. It wiggled and struggled, but her altered self’s claws didn’t let the fish slip away; she was sure she wouldn’t have been able to grab it so quickly as her un-altered self. She hooked the fish as quickly as she could, and dove back into the water. 

To her elation and dismay she found that a couple of the sharks had wandered off, back to the pack, while she’d been gone. The others were circling where her baitfish had been, looking for new prey. They zeroed in on the new fish much more quickly than the first; Prowl had only just finished slicing it and letting it go and already she had their attention.

She swam quickly, drawing them that much closer to the canoe. Would they stop at the bait again, or would they go for her? Seven sharks was still an awful lot of teeth to have nipping at her heels. Just as disastrous would be the remaining sharks turning on and attacking the injured one when she speared the one she needed.

She almost shrieked when she hit her own canoe, she was so focused on the dangerous fish in the water. Prowl watched this fish get devoured just as quickly as the other. Maybe she could wait for a few to wander away… She needed air, so as gently and smoothly as she could, she came up briefly between the hull of the canoe and its float, grabbed a third baitfish in case she needed it, and submerged again. 

With no prey actively bleeding in the water, the sharks circled, sniffing for the traces of energon, but when it was clear there was nothing else, three more wandered away, back to the larger school.

Should she go for it now? There were only four left, and she was right next to her canoe. If she could just get one away from the rest so they couldn’t get it before she did once she speared it… Changing tactics, she coiled up her rope and looped it over her shoulder, then swam forward and tore up the third baitfish with her claws, casting the pieces in different directions before kicking backward with the last piece.

As she’d sort of expected, every shark went in a different direction, snapping up bits of the bait — and one came right at her. Trading the bait for her harpoon, she cast the truestrike as it closed the distance between them. She almost didn’t need the spell, it was so close, but she wasn’t taking any chances. As soon as the magic settled over her, she launched her weapon at her target. Immediately it started to thrash, pulling at the end of her line. Prowl grabbed the edge of her canoe and pulled herself up out of the water, both to get herself out of the range of any teeth and to give herself some leverage to haul in the extremely strong fish.

“Did you get it?!”

“Working on it!” Prowl pulled as hard as she could, flaring her doors back to counterbalance. “Get up where it can’t bite you when I get it in the boat!”

With a yowl of alarm, Sundance leaped from the canoe and onto Prowl’s shoulder.

Through the reflections on the water, Prowl saw some of the other sharks —  _ Ihopethey’redog-sharks,Ireallyhopethey’redog-sharks  _ — closing in on her struggling catch. Panicking just a little, she sent a trio of magic missiles at the frenzied sharks, hoping they would at least distract them…

…she only needed a moment…

“Aka!” Prowl let out a call of triumph as she hauled the thrashing shark on her harpoon into the boat. Immediately she had to leap away from the teeth. She could have stabbed it again to kill it, but instead, clinging to the ohe poles that attached the float to the canoe’s hull, magic missiled it until it stopped moving.

“Is it the right kind?” Sundance asked, peering forward from her perch. 

“I think so, but— oh!” Prowl wobbled and had to catch her balance as one of the other sharks rammed the side of the canoe, rocking it in the water. “I’ll look in a moment. Check if it’s dead for me?” she asked her spirit, stepping back down into the hull beside the dangerous creature where she wouldn’t be as likely to fall into the water. “Go away!” she shouted at the others, backing up the otherwise useless words with a bolt of lightning.

It didn’t make them go away, but now there was a stunned shark in the water for the others to focus on: the two closest, and several from the larger swarm attracted by the commotion.

“It’s dead.”

“Good.” Casting one more spell, Prowl directed her unseen servant to start rowing while she hauled up the anchor. She’d need to take over for it soon, since it was only capable of propelling them through the water without any kind of steering and there were a lot of obstacles nearby, but it shouldn’t get them into trouble before she finished her task. If the anchor hadn’t been too heavy for it she would have had it do that instead, but unless she wanted to cut the rope and leave the anchor  _ (not  _ a good idea), she needed to take care of it herself.

Finally, she breathed a sigh of profound relief as she took the oar away from the spell and took the canoe away from the increasingly frenzied aquatic melee. She had a shark. She had a shark! She just needed a breem to stop and make sure she had the  _ right  _ shark before she could return home.

“Well?” Sundance nudged it with a paw as Prowl sat down beside it. “Is it right?”

“It has the right spots.” Carefully so as not to cut up her hands on the rough plating, Prowl examined the carcass. Black on gray, with several sharp, angular fins along its body, with two unpleasant looking barbs in front of either dorsal fin. And it had definitely been part of an aggressive swarm. “It matches the description.”

“At least I like shark,” Sundance said, pawing at one of the fins.

Prowl smiled. “There is that. We need to be careful not to waste any of the fuel though. It’s all we’re allowed to eat now, and we’re a long way from Rainclouds.”

“Right.”

A long, rainy way from Rainclouds.

The village — or what passed for a village — had moved again when Prowl returned. She was grateful that one of the fishermechs saw her coming in and announced her with his tetere as she pulled the canoe up onto the sand, because she really wasn’t sure what she’d have done if Ricochet hadn’t come and found her. She was really hungry when she handed the now half-eaten sharkticon corpse over, and already shaking with nerves.  _ Pleasebeadog-shark… _

“Y’got th’right one,” Ricochet said solemnly. 

“Thank th’gods,” Prowl whispered, sagging with relief. 

Rico grinned. Prowl suspected she was biting back a laugh. “C’mon. Time fer th’next bit.”

Taking a deep breath, Prowl straightened. “What’s th’next bit?”

“Y’have th’god’s favor,” Ricochet said, hefting the mangled sharkticon. “Now y’gotta show yer stoicism in th’face’a pain, an’ yer dedication t’th’clan.”

Stoicism in the face of pain? Prowl refrained from making a face, but Sundance didn’t. “No fair! After all that work?”

“It’s fine,” Prowl shooshed her. “’M ready.”

And to her surprise, she was ready. Somewhat inanely, she was glad she wouldn’t be recording any of the ritual in a journal. It would only be taken entirely out of context to “prove” for those detractors on the mainland that Polyhexians were barbaric.

Ricochet cleaned the corpse, stripping away the metal flesh from the two poisonous (of course they were) spines on its back, while guiding Prowl into a meditative state, breathing the smoke from the fire in to invoke any number of spirits and gods to come forward and witness.

Prowl recited the prayers after her, followed by her promises to the tribe. The part of her that would always be more of a scholar than a warrior thought the promises and the special, ritualistic phrasing were fascinating. They were also, wonderfully, easy to swear to. There was nothing in them that she wasn’t able and willing to promise freely, and over this she felt no conflict in her spark. Yes, she was willing to defend her clan. To feed her clan. To fight for her clan. To discover new things for her clan.

Then, to prove it to the assembled spirits, she took the dog-shark spines and injected their venom into her own arm.

It hurt. Of course it hurt. But even though she wasn’t a Polyhexian newling, she’d been stung and bitten plenty of times by now. Those experiences made this bearable, and the symbolism of being willing to endure the same — or worse — in the future as a warrior was something Prowl could appreciate. 

She wasn’t sure how long it took for the poison to run its course. She did remember saying prayer after prayer to the gods, guided by Ricochet’s voice, until she could do nothing but brace herself. This was, she thought, so much more  _ real _ than the ceremony swearing herself to Epistemus.

“There,” Ricochet said gently. Prowl felt fingers on her arm and looked over to see her tying the two spent spines to her arm band with the ketzal feathers. “Now yer a warrior’a th’clan.  _ Our _ warrior, one’a Jazz’s war-band.” She touched the center of Prowl’s chevron with her lips. “She’s waitin’ fer ya.”

Prowl smiled. “An’ I can face ’er proudly.” As a true warrior. No wonder Jazz hadn’t been keen to officiate the ceremony though; she wouldn’t have wanted to watch her mate suffer either, even willingly, if their roles had been reversed.

She still felt wobbly as she stood. She accepted Ricochet’s help to get onto her feet, but she insisted on walking out to Jazz alone. She would have liked to run out to her, pounce on her, and spend the whole night interfacing right there in the sand. What she ended up doing was wobbling from tree to tree until she fell into Jazz’s arms, where they dug a sleeping hollow and recharged until the next sunrise. When she woke up, Jazz fetched two bowls of hupa — now more fish-based than filled with Praxan midgrade, as it should be — and they ate, then fell back asleep again.

The next time she woke, she was finally feeling better. She rolled over to find Jazz still beside her, watching her with a gentle expression on her face. 

“Y’did it, beautiful,” she said, field glowing with love and pride. “Y’did it.”

.

.

.


	10. Epilogue

.

.

.

It was so odd, being back in Hightower. Prowl wasn’t hiding under the merchant stalls, but the  _ noise _ of the city was so much more overpowering than she remembered. At least the colorful banners and signs and plastics of the merchants’ attempts to outdo each other for attention were somewhat right, but it was jarring to see all that color against the backdrop of the Praxan city she knew lay beneath. Like a badly applied layer of paint, applied to the wrong thing. Stone buildings instead of crystal trees.

She had to bite her tongue passing a merchant trying to hawk a display of lovingly crafted wind chimes. He was cursing the “grudge” the Polyhexians were obviously holding against him by not buying his wares, but she could see plainly that the real problem was that they were too dully colored to attract a kokako’s optic, and too expensive to use as bird-distractors besides.

“Everything okay?” Jazz asked, coming up beside her. “Y’look… I dunno. Adrift.”

“’S a good word fer it.” Prowl shook her head. “Th’market ain’t any different, but nothin’ looks th’same. It hasn’t changed, but I have.”

Her mate drew her into a hug. “Good changes?”

“I know more now. That’s good.” She held onto Jazz’s arms around her. “Guess time’ll tell.”

Jazz hugged her tighter. “We still goin’ inland?”

“I am,” Prowl said, nuzzling her back. “Yer not. There’s stuff y’need to do here fer Rainclouds while I take care’a th’Prax stuff in th’ _ capital.” _

“Ricochet can sell th’things,” Jazz pointed out. “I’ll follow y’anywhere.”

How to explain to Jazz that she had to report her failure to secure a treaty to the king and face punishment for taking the stance that any sort of treaty would be exploitive? That her refusal to even explain why she was taking that stance could get her exiled? Assuming she wasn’t about to be imprisoned or worse because she’d been recognized during the raids or their aftermath. The last thing she wanted was for Jazz to be punished for those actions too. Here in Hightower, she was protected by the trade season truce and the city’s dependance on Polyhexian trade; in the capital, she’d be much more vulnerable.

They were mates. She should be honest with her.

“D’ya remember any’a th’stuff about  _ diplomatic immunity  _ we talked about?” she asked, turning in Jazz’s arms so she could speak directly to her. “’Bout how there’s protections here fer Polyhexians durin’ th’harvest season?”

Jazz’s nose wrinkled. “Y’said it. Still ain’t sure what it all means.”

“Means yer safer here than ya’d be in th’ _ capital,  _ if th’ _ king  _ decides t’punish ya fer th’raids. I have t’go tell ’im I couldn’t make th’raids stop. ’E won’t like that, an’ I don’t want ’im takin’ it out on ya. Not when ya worked so hard t’protect th’survivors when ya didn’t have’ta.”

Jazz scoffed. Prowl saw her Polyhexian confidence, the posturing, and smiled. It was amusing to think of Jazz teasing and flaunting the unprepared Praxans trying to catch her… but her humor paled at the thought of Jazz actually being caught. Or, just as awful, escaping over a trail of bodies. Fighting her way out would be perfectly natural to her, but it would be disastrous for relations between Praxus and Polyhex.

“Please,” Prowl entreated. “Ain’t doubtin’ yer courage or yer willingness, but please. Lemme do this by myself. Ain’t just safer fer ya, ’s safer fer all’a Rainclouds. I’m gonna have t’navigate a reef ya wouldn’t be able t’see, an’ I don’t want anyone t’git hurt.”

Jazz looked into her optics, searching. For a nanoklik Prowl thought she was going to argue… but then she hugged her fiercely. “Come back t’me?”

“Will,” Prowl said into her shoulder, squeezing back just as hard. “Spirits’n gods willin’, I’ll be back b’fore th’end’a th’season.” If things went badly, she’d probably be back considerably sooner. That exile was not just a possibility, but the most likely punishment she’d face for her failures, was a bizarre comfort. If Praxus rejected her, she still had a home to go to.

“’Kay.” With another squeeze Jazz stepped back. “But if y’ain’t… I can find m’way t’ya. I can’t git lost,” she added with a flicker of her normal brag.

“Know ya can’t,” Prowl said with a grin. “An’ if I  _ do  _ git lost,” or held up, “I’d want ya t’find me.”

“Will!” 

Spark overflowing with love, Prowl leaned in and kissed her beloved. What bustling market? The thought of having an audience never even crossed her mind. Jazz kissed back, her own EM field brimming with love and passion.

They might have gone further than kissing right there in public if a certain cybercat hadn’t dropped down between them from one of the brightly colored awnings.

“Sundance!”

“Aww. Jealous?” Jazz kissed her on the nose. “Don’t be. Love ya too.”

“Not jealous,” Sundance protested, though she  _ didn’t  _ protest the kiss. “I just thought I would remind  _ someone  _ that we aren’t in Polyhex anymore, and you really ought to find somewhere a little more private if that’s how you’re going to say goodbye.”

Oops. Much as she hated to admit it, the cat was unfortunately right. “Show m’how t’greet a returnin’ bondmate when I git back?” Prowl asked, nudging Sundance aside so she could kiss her mate once more on the nose. 

“Will,” Jazz promised.

Reluctantly, and with one final, final kiss, Prowl released her and headed to the castle.

No one looked twice at her in the market; no more than they did any of the other Polyhexians wandering along the rows. It was when she moved beyond the market, into the city proper, that she started getting curious — and even suspicious! — looks from the mechs and femmes she passed. 

“They don’t recognize me,” she meowed to the cat on her shoulder as she passed another knot of staring citizens, “do they?”

“Did you actually think they would?” Sundance gave her a  _ look. _ “You have no idea what you look like right now, do you?”

Prowl glanced down at her plating and assessed herself with newly awakened Praxan optics. Her paint had, as promised, changed colors in the sun since Wheeljack had applied it. The black had become, evolving and brightening, a very dark, dusky purple, while her red accents had turned a shining reddish pink, like the blush of color across the clouds at dawn. And the pearly chalk-and-shell white had always been a very different shade, more grey, more blue, than what she’d worn in Praxus. Her finish, the matte satin favored in the islands for its durability but not very common on the mainland, had seen better cycles. She was worn, faded, and scratched, and while she hadn’t let any rust build up anywhere, she was still stained faintly red in places from the sea. Even the glowing blue lines accenting her chest seam and other sensitive spots were looking worse for wear beneath her jewelry, dried bandage weeds, weapons, and armor, all of which were also distinctly foreign.

“It’s not like I had a mirror,” she defended weakly.

Sundance sniffed. “Because why would you waste glass on something so pointless when you could have bought a dozen bottles to store seeds or fried hexbugs in instead?”

“Or on glass so large it’s all but guaranteed to break before you even cross the Teeth?” After living a full vorn in Polyhex, Prowl couldn’t see the full-length mirrors she’d always had in her bedroom as anything but impractical (though not unnerving as Jazz found them). “Anyway, I can’t do anything about my appearance until we get to the castle.”

“Assuming the guards even let you in,” Sundance snickered. 

That… did seem to be an issue. The guards didn’t recognize her either. They were, at least, polite in trying to send her away from the castle walls, and when she explained that she would like to speak with Ultra Magnus in perfect (Prowl was  _ extremely _ glad she didn’t stutter or stumble over the words) Praxan, they held her while he was fetched.

Ultra Magnus was a large mech. Prowl was sure that if he hadn’t been chosen as a ruler, he would have been chosen as a soldier. She remembered thinking at one point that he looked like his frame had some Iaconi influences, but right now all she could see was that he was big, and clawless, and didn’t have a visor. He looked like a  _ mainlander. _ And who was the mech following on the lord’s heels? A bodyguard, or an assistant, or… she felt she ought to recognize him. Sentinel? Yes; the memory clicked. That was the lord’s heir. Wow.

They stopped together in front of her, features set in an implacable facade; an improvement in Sentinel’s case, given his dislike of Polyhexians. Ultra Magnus addressed her first. “I’m told you wished to speak with me,” he said neutrally, though Prowl detected a note of impatience in his voice.

“And so I do,” she said, not holding it against him. Even if he had recognized her on sight, and she was starting to think there was no one in the kingdom who would, she hadn’t been expected, and was therefore interrupting his schedule. Punctuality! She was going to have to remember to start keeping track of time again. “I’ve just returned from a vorn abroad in Polyhex, and would appreciate your hospitality and assistance in reestablishing myself in Praxus before returning to the capital.”

“You—!” Sentinel burst out, his professional veneer slipping, only to be hushed by Ultra Magnus.

The larger mech examined Prowl again, this time lingering on her doorwings and chevron, rather than her jewelry and other ornaments. His optics flared minutely in surprise. “Imperial Princess?”

Prowl smiled. “It’s good to see you again, my lord.”

“Please, forgive me for not recognizing you immediately,” Ultra Magnus said, opening the castle gate wider and stepping aside so Prowl could precede him. “Welcome back to Praxus, and allow me to offer you the hospitality of the castle.”

“Thank you,” she said graciously, privately enjoying the looks of shock on the guards’ faces as she walked inside. “I apologize that I was unable to announce my arrival in advance. I’m sure your schedule is very full, but I do hope you can arrange a time at some point in the next few cycles to review the current state of affairs. It needn’t be today,” she assured him, “or even first thing next cycle. I could use some time to rest and recover from the journey.”

_ And see a detailer, _ went all but unspoken. The sentiment was a little too clear in Sentinel’s EM field, but Prowl considered it a mark of progress that he didn’t actually say it.

“Of course. I can make time for you next cycle, in the evening. I’ll have the staff notify you of the exact time first thing in the morning, if that is amenable?”

“Quite amenable.” The hard part would be remembering to watch the clock so she didn’t miss the appointment. Maybe she should have one of the servants come to get her just before it was time as well. 

“In the meantime, please use my private washracks and attendants while I arrange for a room for you. Would you like a meal prepared? I can have your correspondence delivered to you now, or once you’re settled.”

“Once I’ve settled will be fine,” Prowl said. There was something else she wanted to take care of first. “A meal, however, would be lovely.”

“I’ll have something sent up.” Ultra Magnus opened the door to his personal chambers for her while Sentinel slunk off, probably to fetch the bath servants and alert the kitchen to have something made. The lord himself started drawing the bath and laying out the towels until those servants showed up. “By your leave?”

“I look forward to hearing from you in the morning,” Prowl said, nodding his dismissal.

The servants were… appalled, there really was no other word for it. They’d obviously been told who she was, but didn’t seem to know where to start.

“Tell them they’re not allowed to touch me,” Sundance said, leaping up into the ornate molding along the walls where she couldn’t be reached. “I can wash myself.”

“They’re not going to wash you,” Prowl meowed back, then had to resist rolling her optics at the looks she got from the servants. That was a habit she wasn’t sure she wanted to break, even if meowing at a cat in front of people was considered weird. Sundance wasn’t just a cat; she was her spirit, and, probably, before this interlude was over, her sanity. “She won’t hurt you if you leave her alone,” she told the servants. As reluctant as she was to see her sun-brightened colors go, she wasn’t about to justify it by saying the paint had powdered pearls and shells mixed in. It more than met with her approval, but it would do her no favors in the capital. “I’m going to need to have my current finish and remaining paint stripped. Don’t bother trying to remove the blue though, it won’t come off with anything but time.” And Prowl wasn’t going to let it all fade, even if this trip took longer than that. She wasn’t going to reduce herself to wearing only a single, ritual, stripe.

“Yes, Imperial Princess.” With that they descended like a… yep. She still had that image of the flock of servants as a mob of kokako stuck in her head. No wonder Jazz had freaked out! The birds couldn’t be trusted with anything.

“Place everything together in the corner,” Prowl told them as they started removing her accessories. “I’ll sort through it later. Except these,” she unwound one of the bandage weeds and handed it to the femme in front of her, “which can be thrown out.”

“Oh!” One of the others cried out in alarm. “Princess, you’re hurt! You should have said something!”

Hurt? Where was she— Ah. The scratch. The one the weeds had been covering where Crux had accidentally tagged her with her claws while they were playing. It was nearly healed, but still visible. “It’s fine,” she said, though that did remind her. “I will need to see a medic about this, however.” Her left shoulder still had a hollow where she was missing a tire beneath its careful wrappings. Somehow — the story changed every time she told it — Jazz had tracked down a shoulder piece the right size and shape to cover the weak point, though she still didn’t have a full armor set (and wasn’t sure she wanted one).

As Prowl removed both the armor and the weeds, the servants drew away from the, to them, horrific injury. Then the lead detailer pushily swept in for a better look, radiating disapproval for, Prowl could only guess, being blasé about the injury. Gently, “With your permission?” he turned her arm back and forth so he could see better. He huffed when he was finished. “Of course, Imperial Princess,” he said deferentially. “We’ll summon the castle medic right away. That tire is not suitable at all for you.” He made a shooing motion and one of the servants scurried from the room. He sniffed. “You’d think the least the barbarians could have done was use a replacement that was the right size.”

“Replacement?” But they hadn’t given her one! Prowl craned her head, trying to see what he was talking about.

“Mirror,” Sundance reminded her between licks. Her attempt to sound aloof and casual was somewhat ruined by the startled meow she let out when she paused washing her own shoulder to look down at Prowl’s. “It’s growing back!”

“It is?” This time Prowl turned to use the mirror, and lo and behold! There in the wheel well was a thin ring of rubber. “How?!”

“You thought it was something about their hot spot,” Sundance meowed, arching her back and lashing her tail back and forth. “Maybe it’s something about their lifestyle?”

“Princess?” the head attendant interrupted. “If you want to sit down until the doctor gets here…”

She didn’t need to, but it wasn’t worth arguing with him. “Hurt” as she was, they weren’t going to be comfortable detailing her until after the medic cleared it. As if _soap,_ soft, Praxan soap at that, was dangerous! Certainly not like sand, sharkticon armor, or kakaru venom, and besides, the plating wasn’t even breached! “I think I will,” she said. In the meantime, she could examine the new tire. How extraordinary!

A season after her fight with Mako, the tire Jazz had popped had entirely regrown. In roughly the same amount of time, this new tire was only half the size it should be. Still, Prowl stared in wonder. The new rubber, of course, lacked any of the signs of wear her others had, but the tread looked like it would match when it finished fully growing in.

“I knew I was healing faster in general, but this…” Prowl saw Sundance preparing to leap down and braced herself. Her familiar landed on her right shoulder, then walked across her back to get a better look. “What are we doing here on the mainland to weaken ourselves so much?”

“I don’t know.” Sundance leaned in to sniff the new tire; Prowl ignored the gasps of alarm from the attendants. Then the cat looked up, audial flaps swivelling to the door right as it opened. The servant who’d been sent to fetch the doctor returned at a run, the medic hurrying behind. “I don’t think this is the time to figure it out either.”

“Imperial Princess,” he greeted, pulling out his examination tools. “My name is Suture. Are you in any pain?”

“Not at all, doctor.” Prowl reached up and moved Sundance out of the way. 

He made a  _ hmm _ sound while he looked at the tire. With a look to ask permission he prodded it gently. When Prowl didn’t flinch, he made another  _ hmm _ sound. “It’s definitely the wrong size,” he concluded, “and we’ll need to replace it, but I don’t see anything wrong with the installation.”

“That’s a relief.” Also not exactly surprising, since it hadn’t been installed at all. Fleetingly Prowl considered asking him to leave it, but just as quickly dismissed the thought. Not driving on a missing, or mismatched, tire was feasible in Polyhex, but not in Praxus. She couldn’t afford the appearance of an injury any more than she could keep her island colors. Revealing that it had regrown itself wasn’t something she was prepared to do; who knew what the ramifications of that would be? She needed to think it over very carefully before she said anything,  _ if  _ she even said anything, and that meant letting anyone who saw the new tire assume the Polyhexians had given her substandard repairs in the meantime. “Would it cause any complications to complete my detailing before replacing it? I wouldn’t want to inconvenience Lord Ultra Magnus by using his rooms for the procedure.”

“No, that’s fine. While I’m replacing it, I would like the chance to go over the rest of your frame to fix any stresses from driving on that,” he nodded to the smaller tire, “but that can wait as well.”

She hadn’t driven on it at all, considering she hadn’t even known it was there, but she kept her response to a simple, “Thank you, doctor. I’ll expect you in my rooms when they’re ready.”

“Of course. I’ll go retrieve the replacement tire right away.”

With the all-clear from the medic, the servants were much less skittish about getting on with their work once he’d left. Sundance retreated up into the molding again, and Prowl stood still while they soaped, scrubbed, and sanded her down to bare plating, with the exception of the faded blue lines.

“It really doesn’t come off,” the lead detailer remarked, puzzled.

“It does not. It will also bleed through any paint you put over it,” Prowl informed him, “so consider that as you apply new colors.”

“As you wish, Imperial Princess.” 

All in all, Prowl was patient but not exactly as comfortable with the process as she had been before her vorn in Polyhex. She remembered Jazz saying detailing was too intimate to allow strangers to help with; now she understood what her beloved had meant. Washing and painting were activities shared between mates and friends. They could be part of a seduction, an affirmation of friendship, a favor from one member of the clan or war-band to another; all interactions with people Prowl knew by sight and name on Rainclouds. She didn’t believe Ultra Magnus or his servants meant her harm, but she didn’t  _ know _ them like she did her clanmates.

It was a decided relief when they were done.

“Did you want any additional ornamentation, Imperial Princess?”

“Not at this time.” She probably wouldn’t bother with anything other than her island jewelry until she returned to the capital. Already she was practically itching to put everything back on, but it would be smarter to wait until the new tire was on. 

Despite knowing better, the kokako image made Prowl reluctant to let the servants take that jewelry and carry it for her, so she insisted on bringing it herself. The castle seneschal waiting in the hall gave her an odd look but didn’t comment, and gestured for her to follow him to the rooms prepared for her at Ultra Magnus’ request.

If there was one thing to like about Ultra Magnus (and Prowl thought there were many things to like about Ultra Magnus, honestly) it was his attention to detail. Prowl was placed in the exact same guest suite she’d occupied on her previous visits to Hightower. The desk in the sitting room already had a tray with a hefty cube of midgrade and a plate of simple oil-based wafers waiting on it for her, with a bowl of midgrade next to it for Sundance. 

There was also a stack of flimsy envelopes. Letters. Prowl ignored those for the moment in favor of the food. Even if it was rather plain. The shaker of gold and silver flakes inspired a feeling of familiarity and nostalgia, but the wafers especially still tasted bland even with the flavoring compared to island fare, and Sundance was quick to complain about the lack of flavor of hers compared to fresh glitchmice, or the trimmings from a fishermech’s catch.

She was busy licking crumbs off of her fingers when there was a knock at the door. Hand still at her mouth she opened it, determined not to let the crumbs go to waste.

“Imperial Princess,” Suture said respectfully, bowing. The nurse behind him stared before shaking himself and bowing as well.

“Mm.” She finished licking her fingers and nodded in greeting. “Doctor. Thank you for coming.”

“Please lay down on the bed and we’ll get you fixed up,” Suture said with a gesture. 

“Of course.”

It was fiddly and ridiculous, how long it took for them to replace the tire. She wouldn’t have had such an issue with it, except that they kept stopping to check that she was alright and offering to slow down if it was getting too uncomfortable. It was a repair; of course it wasn’t comfortable! It didn’t  _ hurt  _ though, and Prowl wished they would just get on with it.

Finally, they completed the installation. Suture looked for and repaired what he thought were frame stresses from driving on the mismatched tire. Between the painkillers and the patronizing tone, Prowl was ready to just tell him to go away when he turned his attention to the “unhealed” scratches and other injuries.

“Those do not require further treatment,” she said firmly, sitting up. 

“Imperial Princess,” the doctor protested worriedly, even as he backed up. “Those may not be as debilitating as the tire, but they will scar. We should fully repair them now before they do.”

The nurse muttered something uncomplimentary about Polyhexian “hospitality” that they had allowed the  _ princess _ to be disfigured by substandard care.

“They won—”

“They might,” Sundance interjected from the bedpost. “We don’t know what made your self repair work better in Polyhex. What if it goes back to normal really fast?”

Ugh. There was a depressing thought. Prowl sighed. “They won’t take too long for you to deal with?”

“Not too long, Princess,” Suture assured. “It will only take a few kliks for the painkiller to activate—”

“Just,” Prowl stopped him, “do the repairs. The painkiller really is unnecessary.”

“Princess—”

“Just get on with it.”

“As you wish.” Suture bowed and started filling in the scratches. He still worked more slowly than was really necessary, and seemed surprised that Prowl never flinched, but at least it was somewhat less grating to sit through.

“Watch him tell you not to drive on that tire today while it settles,” Sundance snickered.

“He can say it if he wants, but I’m not going to listen.”

“You are going to be the worst patient ever.” The cat outright laughed, startling everyone else in the room. The doctor managed to stay professional and focused enough not to be distracted by the meowing, but the nurse was not so discreet. He kept having to shake himself to keep from staring.

Finally, Suture finished up and wiped down the areas he’d worked on, leaving them smooth and (almost) ready for a new coat of paint. “Wait a cycle or two before painting those,” he advised. “It’ll help the metal harden. Stay out of the water and away from other potentially corrosive conditions. And don’t drive on that wheel until the repair settles.”

“Understood.” Stay away from water and corrosive conditions indeed. Here in the city she could follow that advice, but it would have been outright impossible in Polyhex. There was no escaping the sand and sea in the islands. “Thank you, doctor.”

“Of course, Princess.” The doctor, hearing the implied dismissal, gathered up his tools and left. The nurse looked like he wanted to add something, but then decided against it and took himself away as well.

“I’m going to go crazy here,” Prowl meowed as soon as the door swung shut. 

Sundance scratched her audial flap with her hind leg and snickered shamelessly.

Prowl went back to the food, finishing off the wafers before stepping out of the suite long enough to ask one of the servants to bring her directions to the city’s hot spot. So many things had happened it had been pushed to the back of her mind, but now that she was here, she needed to see. She needed to know how she’d come into the world, how Praxans started their lives.

She checked the letters while she waited. Most of them were from Silverstreak, but there was also one from Arcee, and even one from the king. That last would be the summons to the capital, and Prowl set all of the letters aside rather than deal with them for the moment.

The servant returned, announcing that her trip had been arranged. Annoyingly, instead of just coming back with directions, the mech had called for a carriage, attendants, and an escort of castle guards.

“Such a  _ fun _ season,” Sundance heckled. “Makes you just wish you were sleeping in the street-camps with Jazz and Ricochet, doesn’t it?”

“I’ll be lucky if I can even get any sleep,” she meowed back. The berth was soft enough to make sitting problematic; she didn’t want to contemplate trying to sleep on it. 

Alone.

In the meantime, however, she was anything but alone. Stuck with her unwanted entourage, Prowl found herself following the doctor’s orders after all. Riding in the carriage kept her off her tires, and while it was an irritating indulgence, it did help insulate her against the too-loud city as they wound their way through it.

They pulled up to the gate at the hot spot with blessedly little fanfare. Prowl looked up at the castle-like fort built around the site, assessing them. Defensible walls, and even a primitive keep stood to keep out… she didn’t know what, honestly, though they looked old enough to have been built back when there were actual threats to warrant them.

“These walls have been here as long as the city,” the head overseer informed her when she asked.

“It’s so…”

“Manicured?”

“Boring,” Sundance mewed. “Artificial.”

“Not entirely,” Prowl tried to defend, but for a place where life was meant to begin, it felt awfully devoid of it. The ground was all a uniform grayish gravel, raked into swells and mounds where, presumably, there were capsules developing. No wild crystals had been allowed to grow; the only things standing up out of the ground were a series of regularly spaced metal brackets.

“What are these for?” she asked, walking slowly along the rows.

“The pavilions,” the overseer replied. “For when the weather turns harsh. The poles and awnings are stored in the keep when they aren’t in use.”

“And how often are they in use?”

“It varies. Of course keeping the hot spot covered perpetually would inhibit sparks settling here, but we don’t want to let the grounds flood or get too cold.”

As long as there was an opening somewhere, sparks could find their way, Prowl knew. No one knew a lot about what a spark experienced while it wandered around the sky, but she knew that much. Nor was water something that inhibited the development of frames. Prowl bit her tongue to keep from blurting out those two facts and how she knew them and looked around again.

It was peaceful, at least. She could admit that, and be glad of it. These newlings would not feel terror in their very first moments, or have their lives cut short before they’d even begun. But she also felt so… very sad.

“How many people are there for them, when they’re ready?”

“There is a team of four diggers, an overseer, and a teacher for each one, Imperial Princess,” the overseer promised. “We have no higher priority than the safety and care of the newlings as they make their transition into this world.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” And yet, while she probably would have thought that perfectly sufficient a vorn ago, now it sounded almost lonely. The newlings would be looked after, provided for, safe and supervised, but they would also be isolated and restricted. The Polyhexian harvest was far from perfect… but so was this.

“It’s not your job to fix it,” Sundance meowed, her voice subdued. “You could try, but if you want to do that, you’ll have to give up something else. Sometimes it’s just not possible to do all the things.”

“No. It isn’t.” Emotionally she wished there was something she could do, but practically speaking, she knew her spirit was right. There were times when you had to choose.

“Was there anything else I could show you, Imperial Princess?”

“You’ve shown me everything I needed to see,” she said, and thanked him. “I appreciate you making time for me.”

“Of course, Imperial Princess. Shall I accompany you out?”

“That won’t be necessary,” she assured him. “I know the way.”

Sundance leapt up into her arms and purred. “Yes you do.”

With a smile at her spirit, Prowl turned and headed for the gate.

.

.

.

End


End file.
